CHAPTER XLIX.

HEAD OF WHITE BEAR.Section VI.FROM THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION TO THE LAYING OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE: 1807-1857.CHAPTER XLIX.ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS—RUSSIAN RESEARCHES UNDER KRUSENSTERN AND KOTZEBUE—FREYCINET—ROSS—THE CRIMSON CLIFFS—LANCASTER SOUND—BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN—PARRY—THE POLAR SEA—WINTER QUARTERS—RETURN HOME—DUPERREY—EPISODES IN THE WHALE-FISHERY—PARRY'S POLAR VOYAGE—BOAT-SLEDGES—METHOD OF TRAVEL—DISHEARTENING DISCOVERY—82° 43' NORTH.We have now entered the nineteenth century. From this time forward we shall find little or no romantic interest attaching to the history of the sea, with the single exception of that of the Arctic waters. The epoch of adventure stimulated by the thirst for gold has long since passed: there are no more continents to be pursued, and few islands to be unbosomed from the deep. There was once a harvest to be reaped; but there remain henceforward but scanty leavings to be gleaned. The navigator of the present century cannot hope to acquire a rapid fame by brilliant discoveries: he must be content if he obtain a tardy distinction by patient observation and minute surveys,—a task far more useful than showy, and, while less attractive, much more arduous. Our narrative, therefore, of the remaining maritime enterprises will be correspondingly succinct. The reader's interest, as we have said, will attach almost exclusively to the Polar adventures of the heroes of the NorthwestPassage: of Ross, who saw the Crimson Cliffs; of Parry, who discovered the Polar Sea; of James Clarke Ross, who stood upon the North Magnetic Pole; of McClure, who threaded the Northwest Passage; of Franklin and of Kane, the martyrs to Arctic science. Though we shall dwell more particularly upon these voyages, we shall nevertheless mention in due order those undertaken for other purposes in all quarters of the globe.In 1803, Alexander of Russia determined to enter the career of maritime discovery and geographical research. He sent Captain Krusenstern upon a voyage round the world, in the London-built ship Nadeshda. Nothing resulted from this voyage except the augmented probability that Saghalien was not an island, but a peninsula joined to the mainland of China by an isthmus of sand.RECEPTION OF KOTZEBUE AT OTDIA.In 1815, the Russian Count Romanzoff fitted out an expedition at his own expense for the advancement of geographical science. The specific object of the voyage was to explore the American coast both to the north and south of Behring's Straits, and to seek a connection thence with Baffin's Bay. The command was given to Otto Von Kotzebue, a son of the distinguished German dramatist Kotzebue. In Oceanica he discovered an uninhabited archipelago, which he named Rurick's Chain, from one of his vessels. In Kotzebue Gulf, northeast of Behring's Straits, he discovered an island which was supposed to containimmense quantities of iron, from the violent oscillations of the needle. Upon a second visit to Otdia, one of the Rurick Islands, in 1824, the inhabitants remembered him upon his shouting the syllablesTotobu,—their manner of pronouncing his name. They received him with great joy, rushing into the water up to their hips: they then lifted him out of his boat and carried him dry-shod to the shore.In 1817, Louis XVIII. sent Captain Freycinet upon the first voyage which, though undertaken for the advancement of science, had neither hydrography nor geography for its object. Its purpose was to determine the form of the globe at the South Pole, the observation of magnetic and atmospheric phenomena, the study of the three kingdoms of nature, and the investigation of the resources and languages of such indigenous people as the vessel should visit. The expedition was conducted with skill; but its results, being purely scientific, do not require mention here.In the winter of 1816, the whalers returning from the Greenland seas to England reported the ice to be clearer than they had ever known it before. The period seemed favorable for a renewal of Arctic exploration; and in 1818 the Admiralty fitted out two vessels—the Isabella and Alexander—for the purpose. Captain John Ross was sent in the first to discover a northwest passage, and Lieutenant Edward Parry in the second, to penetrate if possible to the Pole. Their instructions required them to examine with especial care the openings at the head of Baffin's Bay. Sailing on the 18th of April, they reached the coast of Greenland on the 17th of June. They saw tribes of Esquimaux who had never seen men of any race but their own, and who felt and testified an indescribable alarm at the sight of the adventurers. It was subsequently proved that what they feared was contagion. Quite at the northern extremity of the bay, Ross observed the phenomenon which has given so romantic, almost legendary, a character to his voyage,—that of red snow. He saw a range of peaks clothed in agarb which appeared as if borrowed from the looms and dyes of Tyre. The spot is marked upon the maps as "The Crimson Cliffs." The color was at the time supposed to be a quality inherent in the snow itself; but subsequent investigations have established its vegetable origin.The ships were now at the northern point of Baffin's Bay, among the numerous inlets which Baffin had failed to explore. They all appeared to be blocked up with ice, and none of them held out any flattering promise of concealing within itself the long-sought Northwest Passage. Smith's Strait, where the bay ends, was carefully examined; but it proved to be enclosed by ice. Returning towards the south by the western coast of the bay, they arrived at the entrance of Lancaster Sound on the 30th of August, just as the sun, after shining unceasingly for nearly three mouths, was beginning to dip under the horizon. The vessels sailed up the sound some fifty miles, through a sea clear from ice, the channel being surrounded on either hand by mountains of imposing elevation. It was here that Ross committed the fatal mistake which was to cloud his own reputation and to put Parry, his second, forward as the first of Arctic navigators. He asserted, and certainly believed, that he saw a high ridge of mountains stretching directly across the passage. This, he thought, rendered farther progress impracticable, and the order was given to put the ships about. Ross returned to England, convinced that Baffin was correct in regarding Lancaster Bay as a bay only, without any strait beyond. It was destined that Parry should thread this strait and find the Polar Sea beyond.SEA LIONS UPON ICE.In the same year the British Government sent an expedition under Captain Buchan and Lieutenant—afterwards Sir John—Franklin, to endeavor to reach the Pole. The objects were to make experiments on the elliptical figure of the earth, on magnetic and meteorological phenomena, and on the refraction of the atmosphere in high latitudes. The two vessels—the Dorothea and Trent—sailed in April, 1818, and made their way towards Magdalena Bay, in Spitzbergen. In latitude 74° north, near an island frequented by herds of walruses, a boat's crew was attacked by a number of these animals, and only escaped destruction by the presence of mind of the purser. He seized a loaded musket, and, plunging the muzzle into the throat of the leader of the school, discharged its contents into his bowels. As the walrus sinks as soon as he is dead, the mortally-wounded animal at once began to disappear beneath the water. His companions abandoned the combat to support their chief with their tusks, whom they hastily bore away from the scene of action.ATTACKED BY WALRUSES.The climate here was mild, the atmosphere pure and brilliant, and the blue of the sky as intense as that of Naples. Alpine plants, grasses, moss, and lichens, flourished in abundance, and afforded browsing pasturage to reindeer at the height of fifteen hundred feet above the sea. The shores were alive with awks, divers, cormorants, gulls, walruses, and seals. Eider-ducks,foxes, and bears preyed and prowled upon the ice; and the sea furnished a home to jaggers, kittiwakes, and whales. Having ascended as high as 80° 34' N., and finding it impossible to penetrate farther to the north, Buchan resolved to quit the waters of Spitzbergen and stand away for those of Greenland. A pack of floating icebergs, upon which the waves were beating furiously, beset the ships. The Trent came violently in collision with a mass many hundred times her size. Every man on board lost his footing; the masts bent at the shock, while the timbers cracked beneath the pressure. This accident rendered a prosecution of the voyage impracticable, and the two ships returned to England, where they arrived in October. The expedition thus failed of the main object it was intended to accomplish.As we have already remarked, Ross neglected the opportunity afforded him of penetrating to the interior of Lancaster Sound,—thus leaving for another the glory of attaching his name to the discoveries to be made there. The Government, being dissatisfied with his management, and being encouraged by Lieutenant Parry to believe that the supposed chain of mountains barring the passage had no existence but in Ross's imagination, gave him the command of two ships, strongly manned and amply stored, for the prosecution of discovery in that direction. He left England on the 11th of May, 1819, with the ship Hecla and the gun-brig Griper. On the 15th of June he unexpectedly saw land,—which proved to be Cape Farewell, the southern point of Greenland, though at a distance of more than a hundred miles. The ships were immovably "beset" by ice on the 25th: their situation was utterly helpless, all the power that could be applied not availing to turn their heads a single degree of the compass.WHITE BEARS.The officers and men occupied themselves in various manners during this period of inaction. Observations were made on the dip and variation of the magnetic needle, and lunar distances were calculated. White bears were enticed within rifle-distance by the odor of fried red-herrings, and then easily shot. On the 30th the ice slackened, and, after eight hours' incessant labor, both ships were moved into the open sea. On the 12th, Parry obtained a supply of pure water which was flowing from an iceberg, and the sailors shook from the ropes and rigging several tons' weight of congealed fog. The passage to Lancaster Sound was laborious, and was only effected by the most persevering efforts on the part of all.An entrance into the sound was effected on the 1st of August; and Parry felt, as did the officers and men, that this was the point of the voyage which was to determine the success or failure of the expedition. Reports, all more or less favorable, were constantly passed down from the crow's nest to the quarterdeck. The weather was clear, and the ships sailed in perfect safety through the night. Towards morning all anxiety respecting the alleged chain of mountains across the inlet was at an end; for the two shores were still forty miles apart, at a distance of one hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the channel. The water was now as free from ice as the Atlantic; and they began to flatter themselves that they had fairly entered the Polar Sea. A heavy swell and the familiar ocean-like color which was now thought to characterize the water were also encouraging circumstances. The compasses became so sluggish and irregular that the usual observations upon the variation of the needle were abandoned. The singular phenomenon was soon for the first time witnessed of the needle becoming so weak as to be completely controlled by local attraction, so that it really pointed to the north pole of the ship,—that is, to the point where there was the largest quantity of iron.Ice for a time prevented the farther western progress of the vessels, and they sailed one hundred and twenty miles to the South, in a sound which they called Prince Regent's Inlet. Parry suspected, though incorrectly, that this inlet communicatedwith Hudson's Bay. Returning to the mouth of the inlet, he found the sea to the westward still encumbered with ice; but a heavy blow, accompanied with rain, soon broke it up and dispersed it. They proceeded slowly on, naming every cape and bay which they passed: an inlet of large size they called Wellington, "after his Grace the Master of the Ordnance." Being now convinced that the passage through which they had thus far ascended was a strait connecting two seas, Parry gave it the name of Barrow's Strait, after Mr. Barrow, Secretary of the Admiralty. The prospects of success during the coming six weeks were now felt by the commander of the expedition to be "truly exhilarating."An island—by far the largest Parry had seen in these waters—appeared early in September, and the men worked their arduous way along its southern coast, till, on the 4th, they reached the longitude of 110° west. The two ships then became entitled to the sum of £5000,—the reward offered by Parliament to the first of his Majesty's subjects that should penetrate thus far to the westward within the Arctic Circle. The island was called Melville Island, from the First Lord of the Admiralty. In a bay named The Bay of the Hecla and Griper, the anchor was dropped for the first time since leaving England; the ensigns and pennants were hoisted, and the British flag waved in a region believed to be without the pale of the habitable world.The summer was now at its close, and it became necessary to make a selection of winter quarters. A harbor was found, a passage-way cut through two miles of ice, and the ships settled in five fathoms' water: they were soon firmly frozen in at a cable's-length from the shore. Hunting, botanizing, excursions upon the island, experiments in an observatory erected on shore, and amateur theatricals, afforded some relief from the unavoidable inactivity to which officers and crew were now condemned. Parry had named the group of islands of which Melville is thelargest, the North Georgian Islands, in honor of King George; and during the days of constant darkness a weekly newspaper, entitled "The North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle," was edited by Captain Sabine, the astronomer.CUTTING IN.CUTTING OUT.The sun reappeared on the 3d of February, 1820, after an absence of ninety-one days. The theatre was soon closed and the newspaper discontinued. The ice around the ships was seven feet thick, though by the middle of May the crews had cut it away so as to allow the ships to float, and had sawed a channel for their boats. On the 1st of August, there was not the slightest symptom of a thaw; on the 2d, the ice broke up and disappeared with a suddenness altogether inexplicable. Parry determined to return home at once, and arrived at Leith, in Scotland, towards the close of October. He was received with great favor, and was rewarded for his signal services by promotion to the rank of captain.Parry made a second voyage in 1821, with instructions to seek a passage by Hudson's Strait instead of by Lancaster Sound. It was totally unsuccessful. He made a third attempt, in 1824, with the Fury and the Hecla. The Fury was lost in Lancaster Sound, and Parry returned baffled and for a time disheartened.In 1822, a French captain, named Duperrey, made a voyage, under the orders of the Government, which is in many respects the most remarkable on record. He sailed seventy-five thousand miles in thirty-one months, without losing a man or having a single name upon the sick-list; nor did the ship once need repairs. The discoveries made were not important, but the surveys effected and the observations upon terrestrial magnetism recorded were interesting and valuable.At about this period, the perils incident to the whale-fishery were strangely augmented by a circumstance which we cannot forbear mentioning. The whale, whose intellectual faculties had been sharpened by the warfare waged against him for two hundred years, was suddenly found to be animated by a new and vehement passion,—that of revenge. "Mocha Dick," who earned a terrible reputation for ferocity, only succumbed after many years of successful resistance. His body proved to be covered with scars, his flesh bristled with harpoons, and his head was declared to be wonderfully expressive of "old age, cunning, and rapacity." Not long after this, a sperm-whale was wounded by a boat's crew from the Essex. A brother leviathan, eighty-five feet long, approached the ship within twenty rods, eyed it steadfastly for a moment, and then withdrew, as if satisfied with his observations. He soon returned at full speed: he struck the ship with his head, throwing the men flat upon their faces. Gnashing his jaws together as if wild with rage, he made another onset, and, with every appearance of an avenger of his race, stove in the vessel's bows! This was the first example on record of the whale's displaying positive design in seeking an encounter. He certainly acted from the promptings of revenge, and, moreover, directed his attacks upon the weakest part of the ship.THE WHALE OF CAPTAIN DEBLOIS.The whale of Captain Deblois, of the ship Ann Alexander, was a still more remarkable animal. When harpooned, instead of seeking to escape, he turned upon the boat, and, in the language of an eye-witness, "chawed it to flinders." The second boat met the same fate. The whale then dashed upon the ship, and broke through her timbers, letting the water in in torrents. In an hour the vessel lay a wreck upon the ocean. Four months afterwards, the crew of the Rebecca Sims captured a whale of large size but of enfeebled energies. He was found to have a damaged head, with large fragments of a ship's fore-timbers buried in his flesh; while two harpoons, sunk almost to his vitals, and labelled "Ann Alexander," designated him as the fierce but now exhausted antagonist of Captain Deblois, of New Bedford.In 1827—to return to the Arctic explorations—a new idea was broached with reference to the Pole and the most likely method of reaching it. Captain Parry, despairing of getting there in ships, conceived the plan of constructing boats with runners, which might be dragged upon the ice, or, in case of need, be rowed through the water. The Government approved of the idea, and two boats were specially constructed for the service: each one, with its furniture and stores, weighed three thousand seven hundred and fifty-three pounds. They were placed on board the sloop-of-war Hecla; and the expedition left the Nore on the 4th of April, 1827, for Spitzbergen. At Hammersfeld, in Norway, they took on board eight reindeer and a quantity of moss for their fodder.After experiencing a series of tremendous gales, being beset in the ice till the 8th of June, the Hecla was safely anchored on the northern coast of Spitzbergen, in Hecla Cove. Parry gave his instructions to his lieutenants, Foster and Crozier, and on the 22d left the ship in the two boats, having named them the Enterprise and Endeavor, with provisions for seventy-onedays. The ice appeared so rugged that the reindeer promised to be of little assistance, and were consequently left behind. The following is an abridged account of the extraordinary method of travelling adopted upon this singular voyage:"It was my intention," says Parry, "to travel by night and rest by day, thus avoiding the glare resulting from the sun shining from his highest altitudes upon the snow; and proceeding during the milder light shed during his vicinity to the horizon,—for of course, during the summer, he never set at all. This practice so completely inverted the natural order of things that the officers, though possessing chronometers, did not know night from day. When we rose in the evening, we commenced our day by prayers; after which we took off our raccoon-skin sleeping-dresses, and put on our box-cloth travelling-suits. We breakfasted upon warm cocoa heated with spirits of wine—our only fuel—and biscuit: we then travelled five hours, and stopped to dine, and again travelled four, five, or six hours, according to circumstances. It then being early in the morning, we halted for the night, selecting the largest surface of ice we happened to be near for hauling the boat on. Every man then put on dry stockings and fur boots, leaving the wet ones—which were rarely found dry in the morning—to be resumed after their slumbers. After supper the officers and men smoked their pipes, which served to dry the boat and awnings, and often raised the temperature ten degrees. A watch was set to look out for bears, each man alternately doing this duty for one hour. It now being bright day, the evening was ushered in with prayers. After seven hours' sleep, the man appointed to boil the cocoa blew a reveillé upon the bugle, and thus at nightfall the day was recommenced."The difficulty of travelling was much greater than had been anticipated. The ice, instead of being solid, was composed of small, loose, and rugged masses, with pools of water between them. In their first eight days they made but eight miles'northing. At one time the men dragged the boats only one hundred and fifty yards in two hours. On the 17th of July they reached the latitude of 82° 14′ 28″,—the highest yet attained. On the 18th, after eleven hours' exhausting labor, they advanced but two miles; and on the 20th, having apparently accomplished twelve miles in three days, an observation revealed the alarming fact that they had really advanced but five. The terrible truth burst upon Parry and his officers: the ice over which they were with such effort forcing their weary waywas actually drifting to the south! This intelligence was concealed from the men, who had no suspicion of it, though they often laughingly remarked that they were a long time getting to this eighty-third degree. They were at this time in 82° 43' 5". The next observation extinguished the last ray of hope: after two days' labor, they found themselves in 82° 40'. The drift was carrying them to the south faster than their own exertions took them to the north! In fact, the drift ran four miles a day. It was evidently hopeless to pursue the journey any farther. The floe upon which they slept at night rolled them back to the point they had quitted in the morning. Parry acquainted the men with the disheartening news, and granted them one day's rest.The ensigns and pennants were now displayed, the party feeling a legitimate pride in having advanced to a point never before reached by human beings, though they had failed in an enterprise now proved beyond the pale of possibility. They returned without incident of moment to England. Parry did not totally abandon the idea of eventually reaching the Pole over the ice, and as late as 1847 was of the opinion that at a different season of the year, before drifting comes on, the project may yet be realized. Still, no mortal man has ever yet set foot upon the pivot of the axis of the globe; and it is not venturing too much to predict that no man ever will.NAVIGATORS FROZEN IN.CHAPTER L.ROSS'S SECOND VOYAGE—THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE—D'URVILLE—ENDERBY'S LAND—BACK'S VOYAGE IN THE TERROR—THE GREAT WESTERN AND SIRIUS—UNITED STATES' EXPLORING EXPEDITION—THE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT—SIR JOHN FRANKLIN'S LAST VOYAGE IN THE EREBUS AND TERROR—EFFORTS MADE TO RELIEVE HIM—DISCOVERY OF THE SCENE OF HIS FIRST WINTER QUARTERS—THE GRINNELL EXPEDITION—THE ADVANCE AND RESCUE—LIEUTENANT DE HAVEN—DR. KANE—RETURN OF THE EXPEDITION.In the year 1828, Sir John Ross applied to the Government for the means of making a second voyage to the Arctic waters of America, and was refused. The next year, Mr. Sheriff Booth, a gentleman of liberal spirit, offered to assume the pecuniary responsibilities of the expedition, and empowered Ross to make what outlay he thought proper. He bought and equipped the Victory, a packet-ship plying between Liverpool and the Isle of Man. She had a small high-pressure engine, and paddle-wheels which could be lifted out of the water. She sailed in May, 1829. We shall give but a brief account of the incidents of the voyage till we arrive at the event which has made James Clarke Ross, the nephew of Sir John, illustrious,—the discovery of the North Magnetic Pole,—that mysterious spot towards which, forever points the needle of the mariner's compass.While in Baffin's Bay, in June, the Victory lost her foretopmastin a gale; two of the sailors who were reefing the topsails had barely time to escape with their lives. Proceeding through Lancaster Sound, and then descending to the south into Prince Regent's Inlet, Ross arrived, after coasting three hundred miles of undiscovered shore, at a spot which he thought would furnish commodious winter quarters. The whole territory received the name of Boothia, in honor of the patron of the expedition. Here they remained eleven months, beset by ice; not even during the months of July and August, 1830, did the ship stir from the position in which she was held fast. At last, on the 17th of September, she was found to be free, and the delighted crew prepared for a speedy deliverance. The unfortunate vessel sailed only three miles, however, when she was again firmly frozen in. The engine, which had proved a wretched and most inefficient contrivance, was taken out and carried ashore,—an event which was hailed with pleasure by all. "I believe," says Ross, "that there was not a man who ever again wished to see its minutest fragment." Another year of monotony and silence now stared the weather-bound navigators in the face. Six months elapsed before even a land-excursion could be attempted; but in May, 1831, occurred the great discovery to which we have referred.THE VICTORY IN A GALE.Commander James Clarke Ross was the second officer of the ship. He started in April, with a party, to make explorations inland. The dipping-needle had long varied from 88° to 89°,—thuspointing nearly downwards,—90° being, of course, the amount of variation from the horizontal line of the ordinary compass which would have made it directly vertical. Commander Ross was extremely desirous to stand upon the wonderful spot where such an effect would be observed, and joined a number of Esquimaux who were proceeding in the direction where he imagined it lay. He determined, if possible, so to set his foot that the Magnetic Pole should lie between him and the centre of the earth. Arriving at a place where the dipping-needle pointed to 89° 46', and being therefore but fourteen miles from its calculated position, he could no longer brook the delay attendant upon the transportation of the baggage, and set forward upon a rapid march, taking only such articles as were strictly necessary. The tremendous spot was reached at eight in the morning of the 1st of June. The needle marked 89° 59',—one minute from the vertical,—a variation almost imperceptible. We give the particulars of this most interesting event in the words of the discoverer himself:"I believe I must leave it to others to imagine the elation of mind with which we found ourselves now at length arrived at this great object of our ambition: it almost seemed as if we had accomplished every thing we had come so far to see and do,—as if our voyage and all its labors were at an end, and that nothing now remained for us but to return home and be happy for the remainder of our days."We could have wished that a place so important had possessed more of mark or note. It was scarcely censurable to regret that there was not a mountain to indicate a spot to which so much of interest must ever be attached; and I could even have pardoned any one among us who had been so romantic or absurd as to expect that the Magnetic Pole was an object as conspicuous and mysterious as the fabled mountain of Sinbad,—that it even was a mountain of iron or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc. But Nature had here erected no monument to denotethe spot which she had chosen as the centre of one of her greatest powers."As soon as I had satisfied my own mind, I made known to the party the gratifying result of all our joint labor; and it was then that, amidst mutual congratulations, we fixed the British flag on the spot and took possession of the North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in the name of Great Britain and King William the Fourth. We had abundance of materials for building, in the fragments of limestone which covered the beach; and we therefore erected a cairn of some magnitude, under which we buried a canister containing a record of the interesting fact,—only regretting that we had not the means of constructing a pyramid of more importance and of strength sufficient to withstand the assaults of time and the Esquimaux. Had it been a pyramid as large as that of Cheops, I am not sure that it would have done more than satisfy our ambition under the feelings of that exciting day. The latitude of this spot is 70° 5' 17", and its longitude 96° 46′ 45″ west from Greenwich."We must remark in this connection that the fixation of thelatitudeof the Magnetic Pole was the only important element of this discovery; for, as the Magnetic Pole revolves about the North Pole at the rate of 11′ 4″ a year, it consequently changes its annuallongitudeby that amount. A quarter of a century has elapsed since its longitude was settled for the year 1831; and this lapse of time involves a change of place of between four and five degrees. It requires no less than eighteen hundred and ninety years to accomplish the cycle of revolution. The latitude of the Pole of course remains unchanged. It will always be sufficient glory for Ross to have stood upon the spot where the Pole then was: the fact that the spot then so marvellous has since ceased to be so is assuredly no cause for detracting from his merit. After this discovery the party returned to the ship.In September the ice broke up, and the Victory, which had the previous year sailed three miles, this year sailed four. She was again immediately frozen in: the men's courage gave way, and the scurvy began to appear. Their only hope of a final deliverance seemed to be to proceed overland to the spot where the Fury had been lost under Parry in 1824, and to get her supplies and boats. The distance was one hundred and eighty miles to the north. They drank a parting glass to the Victory on the 29th of May, 1832, and nailed her colors to the mast. After a laborious journey of one month, they reached Fury Beach, where they found three of the boats washed away, but several still left. These were ready for sea on the 1st of August, when the whole party embarked. They were compelled to return in October, and made preparations for their fourth Polar winter. The season was one of great severity: in February, 1833, the first death by scurvy took place. Ross himself and several of the seamen were attacked by the disease. It was not till August that the boats were again able to move. They reached Barrow's Strait on the 17th, and on the morning of the 26th descried a sail. They made signals by burning wet powder, and succeeded in attracting the stranger's attention. She was a whaler, and had been formerly commanded by Ross himself. Thus they were rescued. After a month's delay, the vessel, now filled to its utmost capacity with blubber, sailed for Hull, in England. There Ross and his officers received a public entertainment from the mayor and corporation. The former then repaired to London, reported himself to the Secretary of the Admiralty, and obtained an audience of the king. His Majesty accepted the dedication of his journal, and allowed him to add the name of William the Fourth to the Magnetic Pole. He learned that he had been given up for lost long since, and that parties had been sent out in search of him.All concerned in this interesting expedition were rewarded by Parliament. Mr. Booth was shortly after knighted; CommanderRoss was made post-captain; the other officers received speedy promotion; and Government paid the crew the wages which had accrued beyond the period of fifteen months for which they were engaged,—amounting in all to £4580. A select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider the claims of Captain Ross himself, and concluded its labors by recommending that a sum of £5000 be voted to him by Parliament.In 1825, Captain d'Urville was sent by Charles X. of France upon a voyage similar to those performed by Freycinet and Duperrey. As we have already had occasion to say, this officer was fortunate enough to return to France with the positive proofs of the destruction of the vessels of Lapérouse upon the island of Vanikoro. He surveyed the whole of the Feejee archipelago, and restored upon French maps its native name of Viti. The results of d'Urville's labors are comprised in twelve octavo volumes, sixty-three charts, twelve plans, eight hundred and sixty-six designs representing the various island nations, their arms, dwellings, &c., and four hundred landscapes and marine views. Admiral d'Urville ranks as the first French navigator of this century.In 1830, two rich shipping-merchants of London, by the name of Enderby, sent Captain Biscoe to the Antarctic Ocean to fish for seals, in the brig Tula and the cutter Lively, giving him directions to seek for land in high southern latitudes. In February, 1831,—being then as far south as the sixty-ninth parallel and in 12° west,—he saw distinct and positive signs of land. On the 27th, in 66° of latitude and 47° of longitude, he convinced himself of the existence of a long reach of land; but huge islands of ice prevented his approaching it. The magnificence of the aurora australis, appearing now under the forms of grand architectural columns and now as the fringes of tapestry, drew the attention of the sailors so constantly towards the heavens that they neglected to watch the ship's track amidmountains of floating and tumbling ice. Captain Biscoe gave to the discovery the name of Enderby's Land. Farther to the west he discovered an island, which he named Adelaide, in honor of the Queen of England. It presents an imposing appearance,—a tall peak burying itself in the clouds and often peering out above them. Its base is surrounded with a dazzling girdle of snow and ice, which extends, though sapped and excavated by the action of the waves, some nine hundred feet into the sea.In 1836, the English Government appointed Captain George Back—who had lately been upon a land-expedition in the American Arctic regions in search of Captain and Commander Ross—to the since celebrated ship Terror, for the purpose of determining the western coast-line of Prince Regent's Inlet. The voyage, though entirely unsuccessful, is one of the most remarkable on record,—showing as it did a power of resistance and endurance in a ship which till then was not believed to belong either to iron or heart of oak. Back proceeded no farther than Baffin's Bay, the Terror remaining for ten months fast in the gripe of its "cradle" or "ice-wagon," as the men called the huge floating berg upon which she rested. He was knighted on his return, and his sturdy ship was put out of commission and docked. It is a subject of regret that so splendid a specimen of marine architecture, as far as strength and solidity are concerned, should have met the fate which she has encountered. Where she is no mortal knows, except perhaps a few inaccessible Esquimaux; for she has perished with her lost consort, the Erebus, and their hapless commander, Sir John Franklin.In the year 1838, on the 23d of April, two ocean-steamers—the first with the exception of the Savannah—entered the harbor of New York. They were the Sirius and the Great Western. They had been expected, and their arrival was the signal for general rejoicings and the theme of universal congratulation. Crowds of people—men, women, and children—assembled alongthe wharves to view the unwonted spectacle. The Sirius was a vessel of seven hundred tons and three hundred and twenty horse-power, and had previously plied between Liverpool and Cork. She had left the latter port on the 4th of April, and had therefore been nineteen days upon the passage. The Great Western was a new ship: she was of thirteen hundred and forty tons; her extreme length was two hundred and thirty-six feet; her depth of hold, twenty-three feet; breadth of beam, thirty-five feet; diameter of wheels, twenty-eight feet; length of paddle-boards, ten feet; diameter of cylinder, six feet; length of stroke, seven feet. She had four boilers, and could carry eight hundred tons of coal,—sufficient for twenty-six days' consumption. She had left Bristol on the 8th of April, and had accomplished the voyage in fifteen days and five hours. Her mean daily rate was two hundred and forty miles, or nine miles an hour, with unfavorable weather and strong head winds. She was expected to stop either at the Azores or at Halifax, but succeeded in making the passage direct. She consumed but four hundred and fifty tons of coal out of six hundred. This event was looked upon by all as an earnest of the complete triumph of ocean steam-navigation; and the Great Western is regarded by the people of the two countries as the pioneer ship among the many noble vessels that have plied upon the great Atlantic ferry. The Britannia—the first vessel of the Cunard line to cross the ocean—arrived at Boston on the 18th of July, 1840, after a passage of fourteen days and eight hours.In this same year, (1838,) the United States' Exploring Expedition,—consisting of the Vincennes, a sloop-of-war of twenty guns, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander-in-chief; the Peacock, eighteen-gun sloop-of-war, William L. Hudson, commanding; the Porpoise, ten-gun brig; the Relief, exploring vessel; and the schooners Flying-Fish and Sea-Gull,—sailed from Hampton Roads. Its objects were to explore the Southern and Pacific Oceans; to ascertain, if possible, the situation ofthat part of the Antarctic continent supposed to lie to the south of New Holland, and to make researches and surveys of importance to ships navigating the Polynesian seas. The squadron was absent four years, and accomplished a vast amount of arduous labor interesting to science and invaluable to commerce. We propose to speak only of what became afterwards its prominent feature,—the supposed discovery of an Antarctic continent.On the 15th of February, 1840, land was seen in longitude 106° 40' E. and latitude 65° 57' S. The next day the ships were within seven miles of it, and, "by measurement, the extent of the coast of the Antarctic continent then in sight was made seventy-five miles." The men landed on an ice-island, where they found stones, boulders, gravel, sand, and clay. Everybody wished to possess a piece of the Antarctic continent; and many fragments of red sandstone and basalt were carried away. The island was believed to have been detached from the neighboring land. Subsequent voyages, however, have thrown great doubts upon the accuracy of these assertions. James Clarke Ross, who was sent with the Erebus and Terror, in 1839, to the South Pole, was informed at Van Diemen's Land of Wilkes' alleged discovery. He reached the spot in January, 1841, and, instead of an Antarctic continent, found water five hundred fathoms deep. The existence of such a continent, therefore, must be regarded as altogether hypothetical. "It is natural," says the London Athenæum, "that a commander of his country's first scientific expedition should wish to make the most of it; but Science is so august in her nature and so severe in her rules that she declines recording in her archives any sentence as truth on which there rests the slightest liability of doubt: in all such cases she prefers the Scotch verdict,—'Not proven.'"Though at this period the discovery of a Northwest Passage—if one existed—was no longer expected to afford a short and commodious commercial route to the Indies and to China, yetthe scientific and romantic interest of the subject still exerted a powerful effect on both nations and Governments. Great Britain resolved to make one last attempt, and, selecting two vessels whose fame was now world-wide, appointed Sir John Franklin to their command,—the Erebus being his flag-ship, with Captain Crozier, as his second, in the Terror. The officers and crew, all told, numbered one hundred and thirty-eight picked and resolute men. The instructions given to Franklin were to proceed, with a store-ship ordered to accompany him, as far up Davis' Straits as that vessel could safely go, there to transfer her provisions and send her home. He was then to get into Baffin's Bay, enter Lancaster Sound, thread Barrow's Straits, and follow Parry's track due west to Melville Island, in the Polar Sea. Here the instructions, with an assurance which seems incredible now, begged the whole question of a Northwest Passage, and directed him to proceed the remaining nine hundred miles which separate that point from Behring's Strait,—a region which it was hoped would be found free from obstruction. He was not to stop to examine any opening to the northward, but to push resolutely on to Behring's Strait, and return home by the Sandwich Islands and Panama. He sailed from the Thames on the 19th of May, 1845. He received the store-ship's cargo in Davis' Straits, and then despatched her home. His two ships were seen by a whaler named the Prince of Wales on the 26th of July: they were in the very middle of Baffin's Bay, moored to an iceberg and waiting for open water.Two years passed away, and, nothing being heard from them, the public anxiety respecting them became very great. The Government determined to attempt their rescue, and sent out three several expeditions in 1848. The two first—one overland to the Polar Sea, under Richardson and Rae, another by Behring's Strait, in the ships Herald and Plover—totally failed of success, as they were founded upon the supposition that Franklin had advanced farther westward than Parry in1820,—a supposition altogether unlikely. The third—consisting of the Enterprise and Investigator, under Captain Sir James Clarke Ross—was equally unsuccessful, though conducted in a quarter where success was at least possible. At Port Leopold, at the mouth of Prince Regent's Inlet, Ross formed a large depôt of provisions,—the locality having been admirably chosen, being upon Parry's route to the Polar Sea, and upon any track Franklin would be likely to take on his way back, in case he had already advanced beyond it. His men built a house upon shore of their spare spars, and covered it with such canvas as they could dispense with. They lengthened the Investigator's steam-launch, so that it would be capable of carrying Franklin and his crew safely to the whalers' rendezvous, and left it. They then made their way through the ice to Davis' Straits, and arrived in England early in November, 1849.The probable fate of Franklin now absorbed all minds, and the Admiralty, Parliament, the public, and the press eagerly discussed every theory which would account for his prolonged absence, and every means by which succor could be sent to him. The Admiralty offered a reward of one hundred guineas for accurate information concerning him. Lady Franklin offered the stimulus of £2000, and a second of £3000, to successful search; and the British Government sought to enlist the services of the whalers by announcing a bonus of £20,000. A vessel was sent to land provisions and coal at the entrance to Lancaster Sound. Three new expeditions were sent out in 1850 by the Government, besides one by public subscription, assisted by the Hudson Bay Company, under Sir John Ross, and another by Lady Franklin. They accomplished wonders of seamanship, and their crews endured the most harassing trials; but we have no space to chronicle any thing beyond the finding of a few distinct but unproductive traces of the missing adventurers, which occurred in the following manner:Captain Ommaney, of the Assistance and Intrepid, landed on Cape Riley, in Wellington Channel, late in August. There he observed sledge-tracks and a pavement of small stones which had evidently been the floor of a tent. Around were a number of birds' bones and fragments of meat-tins. Upon Beechey Island, three miles distant, were found a cairn or mound constructed of layers of meat-tins filled with gravel, the embankment of a house, the remains of a carpenter's shop and an armorer's forge, with remnants of rope and clothing; a pair of gloves laid out to dry, with stones upon them to prevent their blowing away. The oval outline of a garden was still distinguishable. But the most interesting and valuable result of these investigations was the finding of three graves with inscriptions, one of which will show the tenor of the whole:"Sacred to the memory of William Braine, R.M., of H.M.S. Erebus, who died April 3, 1846, aged thirty-two years.Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.—Josh. xxiv. 15."This and one of the other inscriptions, dated in January, seemed to fix at this spot the first winter quarters of Franklin,—for 1845-46. They also show that but three men died during the winter; and three out of one hundred and thirty-eight is not a high proportion of mortality. The seven hundred empty meat-tins seemed to show that the consumption of meat had been moderate; for the ships started with twenty-four thousand canisters. This was the substance of the intelligence obtained during this year of the fate of the wanderers; and it was, as will be noticed, already five years old.An expedition was also fitted out for the search in 1850, under the combined auspices of Henry Grinnell, Esq., a merchant of New York, and the United States Navy Department,—the former furnishing the ships and the means, the latter the men and the discipline. Two hermaphrodite brigs,—the Advance and Rescue,—of one hundred and forty-four and ninety tonsrespectively, manned by thirty-eight men, all told, and strengthened for Arctic duty beyond all precedent, were prepared for the service. They were placed under the command of Lieutenant De Haven,—Dr. E. K. Kane, of the Navy, being appointed surgeon and naturalist to the squadron. They sailed from New York on the 23d of May, and in less than a month descried the gaunt coast of Greenland at the moment when the distinction between day and night began to be lost. The Danish inhabitants of the settlement at Lievely made them such presents of furs as their own scanty wardrobes permitted. Two sailors, complaining of sickness, were landed at Disco Island, thence to make the best of their way home.DR. KANE.DR. KANE PASSING THROUGH DEVIL'S NIP.Thus far the weather had been favorable, and they passed the seventy-fourth degree without meeting ice. On the 7th of July, being still in Baffin's Bay, they encountered the pack. It was summer-ice, consisting of closely-set but separate floes. They could not make over three miles a day headway through it,—which they considered a useless expenditure of labor. They remained beset for twenty-one days, when the pack opened in various directions. The ships now reached Melville Bay, on the east side of Baffin's Bay,—Lancaster Sound, through which they were to pass, being upon the west. Melville Bay, from the fact that it is always crowded with icebergs, and presents in a bird's-eye view all the combined horrors and perils of Arctic navigation, has received the appellation of the "Devil's Nip." Across this formidable indentation the two vessels made their weary way, occupying five weeks in the transit. A steam-tug would have towed them across in forty-eight hours. In the middle of August the vessels entered Lancaster Sound, and, on the morning of the 21st, overhauled the Felix, engaged in the search, under the veteran Sir John Ross. The next day, the Prince Albert, one of Lady Franklin's ships, was seen, and, soon after, the intelligence was received of the discovery of traces of Franklin and his men. The navigators of both nations visited Beechey Island and saw there the evidences which we have already mentioned. The Advance and Rescue now strove in vain to urge their way to Wellington Channel. The sun travelled far to the south, and the brief summer was rapidly coming to a close. The cold increased, and the fires were not yet lighted below. On the 12th of September the Rescue was swept from her moorings by the ice and partially disabled. The pack in which they were enveloped, though not yet beset, was evidently drifting they knew not whither. The commander, convinced that all westward progress was vain for the season, resolved to return homeward. The vessels' heads were turned eastward, and slowly forced a passage through the reluctant ice. On the evening of the 14th of September, Dr. Kane was endeavoring, with the thermometerfar below zero, to commit a few words to his journal, when he heard De Haven's voice. "Doctor," he said, "the ice has caught us: we are frozen up."The Advance was now destined to undergo treatment similar to that suffered by the Terror under Captain Back. For eight mortal months she was carried, cradled in the ice, backwards and forwards in Wellington Channel, wherever the winds and currents listed. At first, before the ice around them had become solid, they were exposed to constant peril from "nips" of floating and besieging floes; but these huge tablets soon became a protection by themselves receiving and warding off subsequent attacks. Early in October, the vessels were more firmly fixed than a jewel in its setting.They now made preparations for passing the winter. The two crews were collected in the Advance. Until the stoves could be got up, a lard-lamp was burned in the cabin, by which the temperature was raised to 12° above zero. The condensed moisture upon the beams from so many breaths caused them to drip perpetually, till canvas gutters were fitted up, which carried off a gallon of water a day. The three stoves were soon ready, and these, together with the cooking-galley, diffused warmth through the common room formed by knocking the forecastle and cabin into one. Light was furnished by four argand and three bear's-fat lamps. The entire deck of the Advance was covered with a housing of thick felt. On the 9th of November their preparations were fairly completed.The sun ceased to rise after the 15th of November: after that, the east was as dark at nine in the morning as at midnight; at eleven there was a faint twilight, and at noon a streak of brown far away to the south. The store-room would have furnished an amateur geologist with an admirable cabinet, so totally were the eatables and drinkables changed in appearance by the cold. "Dried apples and peaches assumed the appearance of chalcedony; sour-krout was mica, the laminæ of whichwere with difficulty separated by a chisel; butter and lard were passable marble; pork and beef were rare specimens of Florentine mosaic; while a barrel of lamp-oil, stripped of the staves, resembled a sandstone garden-roller."The crews soon began to suffer in health and spirits: their faces became white, like celery kept from the light. They had strange dreams and heard strange sounds. The scurvy appeared, and old wounds bled afresh. Dr. Kane endeavored to combat the disease by acting upon the imagination of the sufferers. He ordered an old tar with a stiff knee to place the member in front of a strong magnet and let it vibrate to and fro like a pendulum. A wonderful and complete cure was thus effected. He practised all sorts of amiable deceptions upon his patients,—making them take medicine in salad and gargles in beer. Not a man was lost during the voyage.From time to time fissures would open in the ice around them with an explosion like that of heavy artillery. It became necessary to make preparations for abandoning the vessel, and sledges, boats, and provisions were gotten ready for an emergency. The men were drilled to leave the ship in a mass at the word of command. The crisis seemed to be upon them many a time and oft; but the Advance held firmly together, and the ice around her gradually became solid as granite again. Dr. Kane lectured at intervals on scientific subjects, till the return of light brought with it a return of hope and animal spirits. On the 29th of January, 1851, the sun rose above the horizon, after an absence of eighty-six days. "Never," says Dr. Kane, "till the grave-clod or the ice covers me may I forego this blessing of blessings again! I looked at him thankfully, with a great globus in my throat."The ice-pack did not open till the close of March. Previous to this, all the successive symptoms of the coming thaw presented themselves. The ice began to smoke, and the surface became first moist and then soft. It was soon too warm toskate, and the cabin-lamps, that had burned for four months without cessation, were extinguished. The mercury rose to 32°; the housings were removed from the Advance, and the Rescue's men returned to their deserted ship. The saw was put in motion early in May; but the grand disruption of the ice, which was either to free the ships or crush them, did not occur till the 5th of June. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the first crack was heard, and the water, spirting up, was seen following the track of the fissure. In half an hour the ice was seamed with cracks in every direction, some of them spreading into rivers twenty feet across. The Rescue was released at once: the coating of the Advance held on for three days more, parting at last under the weight of a single man. The liberated ships soon made the Greenland coast, at Godhavn, where they spent five days in reposing, in celebrating the Fourth of July, and in splicing the main-brace,—this latter being a convivial, and not a mechanical, operation. The vessels arrived safely at the Brooklyn Navy-Yard on the 1st of October, 1851. The vessels were restored to Mr. Grinnell, with the stipulation that the Secretary of the Navy might claim them, in case of need, for further search in the spring.THE SEAL.

HEAD OF WHITE BEAR.Section VI.FROM THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION TO THE LAYING OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE: 1807-1857.CHAPTER XLIX.ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS—RUSSIAN RESEARCHES UNDER KRUSENSTERN AND KOTZEBUE—FREYCINET—ROSS—THE CRIMSON CLIFFS—LANCASTER SOUND—BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN—PARRY—THE POLAR SEA—WINTER QUARTERS—RETURN HOME—DUPERREY—EPISODES IN THE WHALE-FISHERY—PARRY'S POLAR VOYAGE—BOAT-SLEDGES—METHOD OF TRAVEL—DISHEARTENING DISCOVERY—82° 43' NORTH.We have now entered the nineteenth century. From this time forward we shall find little or no romantic interest attaching to the history of the sea, with the single exception of that of the Arctic waters. The epoch of adventure stimulated by the thirst for gold has long since passed: there are no more continents to be pursued, and few islands to be unbosomed from the deep. There was once a harvest to be reaped; but there remain henceforward but scanty leavings to be gleaned. The navigator of the present century cannot hope to acquire a rapid fame by brilliant discoveries: he must be content if he obtain a tardy distinction by patient observation and minute surveys,—a task far more useful than showy, and, while less attractive, much more arduous. Our narrative, therefore, of the remaining maritime enterprises will be correspondingly succinct. The reader's interest, as we have said, will attach almost exclusively to the Polar adventures of the heroes of the NorthwestPassage: of Ross, who saw the Crimson Cliffs; of Parry, who discovered the Polar Sea; of James Clarke Ross, who stood upon the North Magnetic Pole; of McClure, who threaded the Northwest Passage; of Franklin and of Kane, the martyrs to Arctic science. Though we shall dwell more particularly upon these voyages, we shall nevertheless mention in due order those undertaken for other purposes in all quarters of the globe.In 1803, Alexander of Russia determined to enter the career of maritime discovery and geographical research. He sent Captain Krusenstern upon a voyage round the world, in the London-built ship Nadeshda. Nothing resulted from this voyage except the augmented probability that Saghalien was not an island, but a peninsula joined to the mainland of China by an isthmus of sand.RECEPTION OF KOTZEBUE AT OTDIA.In 1815, the Russian Count Romanzoff fitted out an expedition at his own expense for the advancement of geographical science. The specific object of the voyage was to explore the American coast both to the north and south of Behring's Straits, and to seek a connection thence with Baffin's Bay. The command was given to Otto Von Kotzebue, a son of the distinguished German dramatist Kotzebue. In Oceanica he discovered an uninhabited archipelago, which he named Rurick's Chain, from one of his vessels. In Kotzebue Gulf, northeast of Behring's Straits, he discovered an island which was supposed to containimmense quantities of iron, from the violent oscillations of the needle. Upon a second visit to Otdia, one of the Rurick Islands, in 1824, the inhabitants remembered him upon his shouting the syllablesTotobu,—their manner of pronouncing his name. They received him with great joy, rushing into the water up to their hips: they then lifted him out of his boat and carried him dry-shod to the shore.In 1817, Louis XVIII. sent Captain Freycinet upon the first voyage which, though undertaken for the advancement of science, had neither hydrography nor geography for its object. Its purpose was to determine the form of the globe at the South Pole, the observation of magnetic and atmospheric phenomena, the study of the three kingdoms of nature, and the investigation of the resources and languages of such indigenous people as the vessel should visit. The expedition was conducted with skill; but its results, being purely scientific, do not require mention here.In the winter of 1816, the whalers returning from the Greenland seas to England reported the ice to be clearer than they had ever known it before. The period seemed favorable for a renewal of Arctic exploration; and in 1818 the Admiralty fitted out two vessels—the Isabella and Alexander—for the purpose. Captain John Ross was sent in the first to discover a northwest passage, and Lieutenant Edward Parry in the second, to penetrate if possible to the Pole. Their instructions required them to examine with especial care the openings at the head of Baffin's Bay. Sailing on the 18th of April, they reached the coast of Greenland on the 17th of June. They saw tribes of Esquimaux who had never seen men of any race but their own, and who felt and testified an indescribable alarm at the sight of the adventurers. It was subsequently proved that what they feared was contagion. Quite at the northern extremity of the bay, Ross observed the phenomenon which has given so romantic, almost legendary, a character to his voyage,—that of red snow. He saw a range of peaks clothed in agarb which appeared as if borrowed from the looms and dyes of Tyre. The spot is marked upon the maps as "The Crimson Cliffs." The color was at the time supposed to be a quality inherent in the snow itself; but subsequent investigations have established its vegetable origin.The ships were now at the northern point of Baffin's Bay, among the numerous inlets which Baffin had failed to explore. They all appeared to be blocked up with ice, and none of them held out any flattering promise of concealing within itself the long-sought Northwest Passage. Smith's Strait, where the bay ends, was carefully examined; but it proved to be enclosed by ice. Returning towards the south by the western coast of the bay, they arrived at the entrance of Lancaster Sound on the 30th of August, just as the sun, after shining unceasingly for nearly three mouths, was beginning to dip under the horizon. The vessels sailed up the sound some fifty miles, through a sea clear from ice, the channel being surrounded on either hand by mountains of imposing elevation. It was here that Ross committed the fatal mistake which was to cloud his own reputation and to put Parry, his second, forward as the first of Arctic navigators. He asserted, and certainly believed, that he saw a high ridge of mountains stretching directly across the passage. This, he thought, rendered farther progress impracticable, and the order was given to put the ships about. Ross returned to England, convinced that Baffin was correct in regarding Lancaster Bay as a bay only, without any strait beyond. It was destined that Parry should thread this strait and find the Polar Sea beyond.SEA LIONS UPON ICE.In the same year the British Government sent an expedition under Captain Buchan and Lieutenant—afterwards Sir John—Franklin, to endeavor to reach the Pole. The objects were to make experiments on the elliptical figure of the earth, on magnetic and meteorological phenomena, and on the refraction of the atmosphere in high latitudes. The two vessels—the Dorothea and Trent—sailed in April, 1818, and made their way towards Magdalena Bay, in Spitzbergen. In latitude 74° north, near an island frequented by herds of walruses, a boat's crew was attacked by a number of these animals, and only escaped destruction by the presence of mind of the purser. He seized a loaded musket, and, plunging the muzzle into the throat of the leader of the school, discharged its contents into his bowels. As the walrus sinks as soon as he is dead, the mortally-wounded animal at once began to disappear beneath the water. His companions abandoned the combat to support their chief with their tusks, whom they hastily bore away from the scene of action.ATTACKED BY WALRUSES.The climate here was mild, the atmosphere pure and brilliant, and the blue of the sky as intense as that of Naples. Alpine plants, grasses, moss, and lichens, flourished in abundance, and afforded browsing pasturage to reindeer at the height of fifteen hundred feet above the sea. The shores were alive with awks, divers, cormorants, gulls, walruses, and seals. Eider-ducks,foxes, and bears preyed and prowled upon the ice; and the sea furnished a home to jaggers, kittiwakes, and whales. Having ascended as high as 80° 34' N., and finding it impossible to penetrate farther to the north, Buchan resolved to quit the waters of Spitzbergen and stand away for those of Greenland. A pack of floating icebergs, upon which the waves were beating furiously, beset the ships. The Trent came violently in collision with a mass many hundred times her size. Every man on board lost his footing; the masts bent at the shock, while the timbers cracked beneath the pressure. This accident rendered a prosecution of the voyage impracticable, and the two ships returned to England, where they arrived in October. The expedition thus failed of the main object it was intended to accomplish.As we have already remarked, Ross neglected the opportunity afforded him of penetrating to the interior of Lancaster Sound,—thus leaving for another the glory of attaching his name to the discoveries to be made there. The Government, being dissatisfied with his management, and being encouraged by Lieutenant Parry to believe that the supposed chain of mountains barring the passage had no existence but in Ross's imagination, gave him the command of two ships, strongly manned and amply stored, for the prosecution of discovery in that direction. He left England on the 11th of May, 1819, with the ship Hecla and the gun-brig Griper. On the 15th of June he unexpectedly saw land,—which proved to be Cape Farewell, the southern point of Greenland, though at a distance of more than a hundred miles. The ships were immovably "beset" by ice on the 25th: their situation was utterly helpless, all the power that could be applied not availing to turn their heads a single degree of the compass.WHITE BEARS.The officers and men occupied themselves in various manners during this period of inaction. Observations were made on the dip and variation of the magnetic needle, and lunar distances were calculated. White bears were enticed within rifle-distance by the odor of fried red-herrings, and then easily shot. On the 30th the ice slackened, and, after eight hours' incessant labor, both ships were moved into the open sea. On the 12th, Parry obtained a supply of pure water which was flowing from an iceberg, and the sailors shook from the ropes and rigging several tons' weight of congealed fog. The passage to Lancaster Sound was laborious, and was only effected by the most persevering efforts on the part of all.An entrance into the sound was effected on the 1st of August; and Parry felt, as did the officers and men, that this was the point of the voyage which was to determine the success or failure of the expedition. Reports, all more or less favorable, were constantly passed down from the crow's nest to the quarterdeck. The weather was clear, and the ships sailed in perfect safety through the night. Towards morning all anxiety respecting the alleged chain of mountains across the inlet was at an end; for the two shores were still forty miles apart, at a distance of one hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the channel. The water was now as free from ice as the Atlantic; and they began to flatter themselves that they had fairly entered the Polar Sea. A heavy swell and the familiar ocean-like color which was now thought to characterize the water were also encouraging circumstances. The compasses became so sluggish and irregular that the usual observations upon the variation of the needle were abandoned. The singular phenomenon was soon for the first time witnessed of the needle becoming so weak as to be completely controlled by local attraction, so that it really pointed to the north pole of the ship,—that is, to the point where there was the largest quantity of iron.Ice for a time prevented the farther western progress of the vessels, and they sailed one hundred and twenty miles to the South, in a sound which they called Prince Regent's Inlet. Parry suspected, though incorrectly, that this inlet communicatedwith Hudson's Bay. Returning to the mouth of the inlet, he found the sea to the westward still encumbered with ice; but a heavy blow, accompanied with rain, soon broke it up and dispersed it. They proceeded slowly on, naming every cape and bay which they passed: an inlet of large size they called Wellington, "after his Grace the Master of the Ordnance." Being now convinced that the passage through which they had thus far ascended was a strait connecting two seas, Parry gave it the name of Barrow's Strait, after Mr. Barrow, Secretary of the Admiralty. The prospects of success during the coming six weeks were now felt by the commander of the expedition to be "truly exhilarating."An island—by far the largest Parry had seen in these waters—appeared early in September, and the men worked their arduous way along its southern coast, till, on the 4th, they reached the longitude of 110° west. The two ships then became entitled to the sum of £5000,—the reward offered by Parliament to the first of his Majesty's subjects that should penetrate thus far to the westward within the Arctic Circle. The island was called Melville Island, from the First Lord of the Admiralty. In a bay named The Bay of the Hecla and Griper, the anchor was dropped for the first time since leaving England; the ensigns and pennants were hoisted, and the British flag waved in a region believed to be without the pale of the habitable world.The summer was now at its close, and it became necessary to make a selection of winter quarters. A harbor was found, a passage-way cut through two miles of ice, and the ships settled in five fathoms' water: they were soon firmly frozen in at a cable's-length from the shore. Hunting, botanizing, excursions upon the island, experiments in an observatory erected on shore, and amateur theatricals, afforded some relief from the unavoidable inactivity to which officers and crew were now condemned. Parry had named the group of islands of which Melville is thelargest, the North Georgian Islands, in honor of King George; and during the days of constant darkness a weekly newspaper, entitled "The North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle," was edited by Captain Sabine, the astronomer.CUTTING IN.CUTTING OUT.The sun reappeared on the 3d of February, 1820, after an absence of ninety-one days. The theatre was soon closed and the newspaper discontinued. The ice around the ships was seven feet thick, though by the middle of May the crews had cut it away so as to allow the ships to float, and had sawed a channel for their boats. On the 1st of August, there was not the slightest symptom of a thaw; on the 2d, the ice broke up and disappeared with a suddenness altogether inexplicable. Parry determined to return home at once, and arrived at Leith, in Scotland, towards the close of October. He was received with great favor, and was rewarded for his signal services by promotion to the rank of captain.Parry made a second voyage in 1821, with instructions to seek a passage by Hudson's Strait instead of by Lancaster Sound. It was totally unsuccessful. He made a third attempt, in 1824, with the Fury and the Hecla. The Fury was lost in Lancaster Sound, and Parry returned baffled and for a time disheartened.In 1822, a French captain, named Duperrey, made a voyage, under the orders of the Government, which is in many respects the most remarkable on record. He sailed seventy-five thousand miles in thirty-one months, without losing a man or having a single name upon the sick-list; nor did the ship once need repairs. The discoveries made were not important, but the surveys effected and the observations upon terrestrial magnetism recorded were interesting and valuable.At about this period, the perils incident to the whale-fishery were strangely augmented by a circumstance which we cannot forbear mentioning. The whale, whose intellectual faculties had been sharpened by the warfare waged against him for two hundred years, was suddenly found to be animated by a new and vehement passion,—that of revenge. "Mocha Dick," who earned a terrible reputation for ferocity, only succumbed after many years of successful resistance. His body proved to be covered with scars, his flesh bristled with harpoons, and his head was declared to be wonderfully expressive of "old age, cunning, and rapacity." Not long after this, a sperm-whale was wounded by a boat's crew from the Essex. A brother leviathan, eighty-five feet long, approached the ship within twenty rods, eyed it steadfastly for a moment, and then withdrew, as if satisfied with his observations. He soon returned at full speed: he struck the ship with his head, throwing the men flat upon their faces. Gnashing his jaws together as if wild with rage, he made another onset, and, with every appearance of an avenger of his race, stove in the vessel's bows! This was the first example on record of the whale's displaying positive design in seeking an encounter. He certainly acted from the promptings of revenge, and, moreover, directed his attacks upon the weakest part of the ship.THE WHALE OF CAPTAIN DEBLOIS.The whale of Captain Deblois, of the ship Ann Alexander, was a still more remarkable animal. When harpooned, instead of seeking to escape, he turned upon the boat, and, in the language of an eye-witness, "chawed it to flinders." The second boat met the same fate. The whale then dashed upon the ship, and broke through her timbers, letting the water in in torrents. In an hour the vessel lay a wreck upon the ocean. Four months afterwards, the crew of the Rebecca Sims captured a whale of large size but of enfeebled energies. He was found to have a damaged head, with large fragments of a ship's fore-timbers buried in his flesh; while two harpoons, sunk almost to his vitals, and labelled "Ann Alexander," designated him as the fierce but now exhausted antagonist of Captain Deblois, of New Bedford.In 1827—to return to the Arctic explorations—a new idea was broached with reference to the Pole and the most likely method of reaching it. Captain Parry, despairing of getting there in ships, conceived the plan of constructing boats with runners, which might be dragged upon the ice, or, in case of need, be rowed through the water. The Government approved of the idea, and two boats were specially constructed for the service: each one, with its furniture and stores, weighed three thousand seven hundred and fifty-three pounds. They were placed on board the sloop-of-war Hecla; and the expedition left the Nore on the 4th of April, 1827, for Spitzbergen. At Hammersfeld, in Norway, they took on board eight reindeer and a quantity of moss for their fodder.After experiencing a series of tremendous gales, being beset in the ice till the 8th of June, the Hecla was safely anchored on the northern coast of Spitzbergen, in Hecla Cove. Parry gave his instructions to his lieutenants, Foster and Crozier, and on the 22d left the ship in the two boats, having named them the Enterprise and Endeavor, with provisions for seventy-onedays. The ice appeared so rugged that the reindeer promised to be of little assistance, and were consequently left behind. The following is an abridged account of the extraordinary method of travelling adopted upon this singular voyage:"It was my intention," says Parry, "to travel by night and rest by day, thus avoiding the glare resulting from the sun shining from his highest altitudes upon the snow; and proceeding during the milder light shed during his vicinity to the horizon,—for of course, during the summer, he never set at all. This practice so completely inverted the natural order of things that the officers, though possessing chronometers, did not know night from day. When we rose in the evening, we commenced our day by prayers; after which we took off our raccoon-skin sleeping-dresses, and put on our box-cloth travelling-suits. We breakfasted upon warm cocoa heated with spirits of wine—our only fuel—and biscuit: we then travelled five hours, and stopped to dine, and again travelled four, five, or six hours, according to circumstances. It then being early in the morning, we halted for the night, selecting the largest surface of ice we happened to be near for hauling the boat on. Every man then put on dry stockings and fur boots, leaving the wet ones—which were rarely found dry in the morning—to be resumed after their slumbers. After supper the officers and men smoked their pipes, which served to dry the boat and awnings, and often raised the temperature ten degrees. A watch was set to look out for bears, each man alternately doing this duty for one hour. It now being bright day, the evening was ushered in with prayers. After seven hours' sleep, the man appointed to boil the cocoa blew a reveillé upon the bugle, and thus at nightfall the day was recommenced."The difficulty of travelling was much greater than had been anticipated. The ice, instead of being solid, was composed of small, loose, and rugged masses, with pools of water between them. In their first eight days they made but eight miles'northing. At one time the men dragged the boats only one hundred and fifty yards in two hours. On the 17th of July they reached the latitude of 82° 14′ 28″,—the highest yet attained. On the 18th, after eleven hours' exhausting labor, they advanced but two miles; and on the 20th, having apparently accomplished twelve miles in three days, an observation revealed the alarming fact that they had really advanced but five. The terrible truth burst upon Parry and his officers: the ice over which they were with such effort forcing their weary waywas actually drifting to the south! This intelligence was concealed from the men, who had no suspicion of it, though they often laughingly remarked that they were a long time getting to this eighty-third degree. They were at this time in 82° 43' 5". The next observation extinguished the last ray of hope: after two days' labor, they found themselves in 82° 40'. The drift was carrying them to the south faster than their own exertions took them to the north! In fact, the drift ran four miles a day. It was evidently hopeless to pursue the journey any farther. The floe upon which they slept at night rolled them back to the point they had quitted in the morning. Parry acquainted the men with the disheartening news, and granted them one day's rest.The ensigns and pennants were now displayed, the party feeling a legitimate pride in having advanced to a point never before reached by human beings, though they had failed in an enterprise now proved beyond the pale of possibility. They returned without incident of moment to England. Parry did not totally abandon the idea of eventually reaching the Pole over the ice, and as late as 1847 was of the opinion that at a different season of the year, before drifting comes on, the project may yet be realized. Still, no mortal man has ever yet set foot upon the pivot of the axis of the globe; and it is not venturing too much to predict that no man ever will.

HEAD OF WHITE BEAR.

HEAD OF WHITE BEAR.

HEAD OF WHITE BEAR.

Section VI.

FROM THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION TO THE LAYING OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE: 1807-1857.

ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS—RUSSIAN RESEARCHES UNDER KRUSENSTERN AND KOTZEBUE—FREYCINET—ROSS—THE CRIMSON CLIFFS—LANCASTER SOUND—BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN—PARRY—THE POLAR SEA—WINTER QUARTERS—RETURN HOME—DUPERREY—EPISODES IN THE WHALE-FISHERY—PARRY'S POLAR VOYAGE—BOAT-SLEDGES—METHOD OF TRAVEL—DISHEARTENING DISCOVERY—82° 43' NORTH.

We have now entered the nineteenth century. From this time forward we shall find little or no romantic interest attaching to the history of the sea, with the single exception of that of the Arctic waters. The epoch of adventure stimulated by the thirst for gold has long since passed: there are no more continents to be pursued, and few islands to be unbosomed from the deep. There was once a harvest to be reaped; but there remain henceforward but scanty leavings to be gleaned. The navigator of the present century cannot hope to acquire a rapid fame by brilliant discoveries: he must be content if he obtain a tardy distinction by patient observation and minute surveys,—a task far more useful than showy, and, while less attractive, much more arduous. Our narrative, therefore, of the remaining maritime enterprises will be correspondingly succinct. The reader's interest, as we have said, will attach almost exclusively to the Polar adventures of the heroes of the NorthwestPassage: of Ross, who saw the Crimson Cliffs; of Parry, who discovered the Polar Sea; of James Clarke Ross, who stood upon the North Magnetic Pole; of McClure, who threaded the Northwest Passage; of Franklin and of Kane, the martyrs to Arctic science. Though we shall dwell more particularly upon these voyages, we shall nevertheless mention in due order those undertaken for other purposes in all quarters of the globe.

In 1803, Alexander of Russia determined to enter the career of maritime discovery and geographical research. He sent Captain Krusenstern upon a voyage round the world, in the London-built ship Nadeshda. Nothing resulted from this voyage except the augmented probability that Saghalien was not an island, but a peninsula joined to the mainland of China by an isthmus of sand.

RECEPTION OF KOTZEBUE AT OTDIA.

RECEPTION OF KOTZEBUE AT OTDIA.

RECEPTION OF KOTZEBUE AT OTDIA.

In 1815, the Russian Count Romanzoff fitted out an expedition at his own expense for the advancement of geographical science. The specific object of the voyage was to explore the American coast both to the north and south of Behring's Straits, and to seek a connection thence with Baffin's Bay. The command was given to Otto Von Kotzebue, a son of the distinguished German dramatist Kotzebue. In Oceanica he discovered an uninhabited archipelago, which he named Rurick's Chain, from one of his vessels. In Kotzebue Gulf, northeast of Behring's Straits, he discovered an island which was supposed to containimmense quantities of iron, from the violent oscillations of the needle. Upon a second visit to Otdia, one of the Rurick Islands, in 1824, the inhabitants remembered him upon his shouting the syllablesTotobu,—their manner of pronouncing his name. They received him with great joy, rushing into the water up to their hips: they then lifted him out of his boat and carried him dry-shod to the shore.

In 1817, Louis XVIII. sent Captain Freycinet upon the first voyage which, though undertaken for the advancement of science, had neither hydrography nor geography for its object. Its purpose was to determine the form of the globe at the South Pole, the observation of magnetic and atmospheric phenomena, the study of the three kingdoms of nature, and the investigation of the resources and languages of such indigenous people as the vessel should visit. The expedition was conducted with skill; but its results, being purely scientific, do not require mention here.

In the winter of 1816, the whalers returning from the Greenland seas to England reported the ice to be clearer than they had ever known it before. The period seemed favorable for a renewal of Arctic exploration; and in 1818 the Admiralty fitted out two vessels—the Isabella and Alexander—for the purpose. Captain John Ross was sent in the first to discover a northwest passage, and Lieutenant Edward Parry in the second, to penetrate if possible to the Pole. Their instructions required them to examine with especial care the openings at the head of Baffin's Bay. Sailing on the 18th of April, they reached the coast of Greenland on the 17th of June. They saw tribes of Esquimaux who had never seen men of any race but their own, and who felt and testified an indescribable alarm at the sight of the adventurers. It was subsequently proved that what they feared was contagion. Quite at the northern extremity of the bay, Ross observed the phenomenon which has given so romantic, almost legendary, a character to his voyage,—that of red snow. He saw a range of peaks clothed in agarb which appeared as if borrowed from the looms and dyes of Tyre. The spot is marked upon the maps as "The Crimson Cliffs." The color was at the time supposed to be a quality inherent in the snow itself; but subsequent investigations have established its vegetable origin.

The ships were now at the northern point of Baffin's Bay, among the numerous inlets which Baffin had failed to explore. They all appeared to be blocked up with ice, and none of them held out any flattering promise of concealing within itself the long-sought Northwest Passage. Smith's Strait, where the bay ends, was carefully examined; but it proved to be enclosed by ice. Returning towards the south by the western coast of the bay, they arrived at the entrance of Lancaster Sound on the 30th of August, just as the sun, after shining unceasingly for nearly three mouths, was beginning to dip under the horizon. The vessels sailed up the sound some fifty miles, through a sea clear from ice, the channel being surrounded on either hand by mountains of imposing elevation. It was here that Ross committed the fatal mistake which was to cloud his own reputation and to put Parry, his second, forward as the first of Arctic navigators. He asserted, and certainly believed, that he saw a high ridge of mountains stretching directly across the passage. This, he thought, rendered farther progress impracticable, and the order was given to put the ships about. Ross returned to England, convinced that Baffin was correct in regarding Lancaster Bay as a bay only, without any strait beyond. It was destined that Parry should thread this strait and find the Polar Sea beyond.

SEA LIONS UPON ICE.

SEA LIONS UPON ICE.

SEA LIONS UPON ICE.

In the same year the British Government sent an expedition under Captain Buchan and Lieutenant—afterwards Sir John—Franklin, to endeavor to reach the Pole. The objects were to make experiments on the elliptical figure of the earth, on magnetic and meteorological phenomena, and on the refraction of the atmosphere in high latitudes. The two vessels—the Dorothea and Trent—sailed in April, 1818, and made their way towards Magdalena Bay, in Spitzbergen. In latitude 74° north, near an island frequented by herds of walruses, a boat's crew was attacked by a number of these animals, and only escaped destruction by the presence of mind of the purser. He seized a loaded musket, and, plunging the muzzle into the throat of the leader of the school, discharged its contents into his bowels. As the walrus sinks as soon as he is dead, the mortally-wounded animal at once began to disappear beneath the water. His companions abandoned the combat to support their chief with their tusks, whom they hastily bore away from the scene of action.

ATTACKED BY WALRUSES.

ATTACKED BY WALRUSES.

ATTACKED BY WALRUSES.

The climate here was mild, the atmosphere pure and brilliant, and the blue of the sky as intense as that of Naples. Alpine plants, grasses, moss, and lichens, flourished in abundance, and afforded browsing pasturage to reindeer at the height of fifteen hundred feet above the sea. The shores were alive with awks, divers, cormorants, gulls, walruses, and seals. Eider-ducks,foxes, and bears preyed and prowled upon the ice; and the sea furnished a home to jaggers, kittiwakes, and whales. Having ascended as high as 80° 34' N., and finding it impossible to penetrate farther to the north, Buchan resolved to quit the waters of Spitzbergen and stand away for those of Greenland. A pack of floating icebergs, upon which the waves were beating furiously, beset the ships. The Trent came violently in collision with a mass many hundred times her size. Every man on board lost his footing; the masts bent at the shock, while the timbers cracked beneath the pressure. This accident rendered a prosecution of the voyage impracticable, and the two ships returned to England, where they arrived in October. The expedition thus failed of the main object it was intended to accomplish.

As we have already remarked, Ross neglected the opportunity afforded him of penetrating to the interior of Lancaster Sound,—thus leaving for another the glory of attaching his name to the discoveries to be made there. The Government, being dissatisfied with his management, and being encouraged by Lieutenant Parry to believe that the supposed chain of mountains barring the passage had no existence but in Ross's imagination, gave him the command of two ships, strongly manned and amply stored, for the prosecution of discovery in that direction. He left England on the 11th of May, 1819, with the ship Hecla and the gun-brig Griper. On the 15th of June he unexpectedly saw land,—which proved to be Cape Farewell, the southern point of Greenland, though at a distance of more than a hundred miles. The ships were immovably "beset" by ice on the 25th: their situation was utterly helpless, all the power that could be applied not availing to turn their heads a single degree of the compass.

WHITE BEARS.

WHITE BEARS.

WHITE BEARS.

The officers and men occupied themselves in various manners during this period of inaction. Observations were made on the dip and variation of the magnetic needle, and lunar distances were calculated. White bears were enticed within rifle-distance by the odor of fried red-herrings, and then easily shot. On the 30th the ice slackened, and, after eight hours' incessant labor, both ships were moved into the open sea. On the 12th, Parry obtained a supply of pure water which was flowing from an iceberg, and the sailors shook from the ropes and rigging several tons' weight of congealed fog. The passage to Lancaster Sound was laborious, and was only effected by the most persevering efforts on the part of all.

An entrance into the sound was effected on the 1st of August; and Parry felt, as did the officers and men, that this was the point of the voyage which was to determine the success or failure of the expedition. Reports, all more or less favorable, were constantly passed down from the crow's nest to the quarterdeck. The weather was clear, and the ships sailed in perfect safety through the night. Towards morning all anxiety respecting the alleged chain of mountains across the inlet was at an end; for the two shores were still forty miles apart, at a distance of one hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the channel. The water was now as free from ice as the Atlantic; and they began to flatter themselves that they had fairly entered the Polar Sea. A heavy swell and the familiar ocean-like color which was now thought to characterize the water were also encouraging circumstances. The compasses became so sluggish and irregular that the usual observations upon the variation of the needle were abandoned. The singular phenomenon was soon for the first time witnessed of the needle becoming so weak as to be completely controlled by local attraction, so that it really pointed to the north pole of the ship,—that is, to the point where there was the largest quantity of iron.

Ice for a time prevented the farther western progress of the vessels, and they sailed one hundred and twenty miles to the South, in a sound which they called Prince Regent's Inlet. Parry suspected, though incorrectly, that this inlet communicatedwith Hudson's Bay. Returning to the mouth of the inlet, he found the sea to the westward still encumbered with ice; but a heavy blow, accompanied with rain, soon broke it up and dispersed it. They proceeded slowly on, naming every cape and bay which they passed: an inlet of large size they called Wellington, "after his Grace the Master of the Ordnance." Being now convinced that the passage through which they had thus far ascended was a strait connecting two seas, Parry gave it the name of Barrow's Strait, after Mr. Barrow, Secretary of the Admiralty. The prospects of success during the coming six weeks were now felt by the commander of the expedition to be "truly exhilarating."

An island—by far the largest Parry had seen in these waters—appeared early in September, and the men worked their arduous way along its southern coast, till, on the 4th, they reached the longitude of 110° west. The two ships then became entitled to the sum of £5000,—the reward offered by Parliament to the first of his Majesty's subjects that should penetrate thus far to the westward within the Arctic Circle. The island was called Melville Island, from the First Lord of the Admiralty. In a bay named The Bay of the Hecla and Griper, the anchor was dropped for the first time since leaving England; the ensigns and pennants were hoisted, and the British flag waved in a region believed to be without the pale of the habitable world.

The summer was now at its close, and it became necessary to make a selection of winter quarters. A harbor was found, a passage-way cut through two miles of ice, and the ships settled in five fathoms' water: they were soon firmly frozen in at a cable's-length from the shore. Hunting, botanizing, excursions upon the island, experiments in an observatory erected on shore, and amateur theatricals, afforded some relief from the unavoidable inactivity to which officers and crew were now condemned. Parry had named the group of islands of which Melville is thelargest, the North Georgian Islands, in honor of King George; and during the days of constant darkness a weekly newspaper, entitled "The North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle," was edited by Captain Sabine, the astronomer.

CUTTING IN.

CUTTING IN.

CUTTING IN.

CUTTING OUT.

CUTTING OUT.

CUTTING OUT.

The sun reappeared on the 3d of February, 1820, after an absence of ninety-one days. The theatre was soon closed and the newspaper discontinued. The ice around the ships was seven feet thick, though by the middle of May the crews had cut it away so as to allow the ships to float, and had sawed a channel for their boats. On the 1st of August, there was not the slightest symptom of a thaw; on the 2d, the ice broke up and disappeared with a suddenness altogether inexplicable. Parry determined to return home at once, and arrived at Leith, in Scotland, towards the close of October. He was received with great favor, and was rewarded for his signal services by promotion to the rank of captain.

Parry made a second voyage in 1821, with instructions to seek a passage by Hudson's Strait instead of by Lancaster Sound. It was totally unsuccessful. He made a third attempt, in 1824, with the Fury and the Hecla. The Fury was lost in Lancaster Sound, and Parry returned baffled and for a time disheartened.

In 1822, a French captain, named Duperrey, made a voyage, under the orders of the Government, which is in many respects the most remarkable on record. He sailed seventy-five thousand miles in thirty-one months, without losing a man or having a single name upon the sick-list; nor did the ship once need repairs. The discoveries made were not important, but the surveys effected and the observations upon terrestrial magnetism recorded were interesting and valuable.

At about this period, the perils incident to the whale-fishery were strangely augmented by a circumstance which we cannot forbear mentioning. The whale, whose intellectual faculties had been sharpened by the warfare waged against him for two hundred years, was suddenly found to be animated by a new and vehement passion,—that of revenge. "Mocha Dick," who earned a terrible reputation for ferocity, only succumbed after many years of successful resistance. His body proved to be covered with scars, his flesh bristled with harpoons, and his head was declared to be wonderfully expressive of "old age, cunning, and rapacity." Not long after this, a sperm-whale was wounded by a boat's crew from the Essex. A brother leviathan, eighty-five feet long, approached the ship within twenty rods, eyed it steadfastly for a moment, and then withdrew, as if satisfied with his observations. He soon returned at full speed: he struck the ship with his head, throwing the men flat upon their faces. Gnashing his jaws together as if wild with rage, he made another onset, and, with every appearance of an avenger of his race, stove in the vessel's bows! This was the first example on record of the whale's displaying positive design in seeking an encounter. He certainly acted from the promptings of revenge, and, moreover, directed his attacks upon the weakest part of the ship.

THE WHALE OF CAPTAIN DEBLOIS.

THE WHALE OF CAPTAIN DEBLOIS.

THE WHALE OF CAPTAIN DEBLOIS.

The whale of Captain Deblois, of the ship Ann Alexander, was a still more remarkable animal. When harpooned, instead of seeking to escape, he turned upon the boat, and, in the language of an eye-witness, "chawed it to flinders." The second boat met the same fate. The whale then dashed upon the ship, and broke through her timbers, letting the water in in torrents. In an hour the vessel lay a wreck upon the ocean. Four months afterwards, the crew of the Rebecca Sims captured a whale of large size but of enfeebled energies. He was found to have a damaged head, with large fragments of a ship's fore-timbers buried in his flesh; while two harpoons, sunk almost to his vitals, and labelled "Ann Alexander," designated him as the fierce but now exhausted antagonist of Captain Deblois, of New Bedford.

In 1827—to return to the Arctic explorations—a new idea was broached with reference to the Pole and the most likely method of reaching it. Captain Parry, despairing of getting there in ships, conceived the plan of constructing boats with runners, which might be dragged upon the ice, or, in case of need, be rowed through the water. The Government approved of the idea, and two boats were specially constructed for the service: each one, with its furniture and stores, weighed three thousand seven hundred and fifty-three pounds. They were placed on board the sloop-of-war Hecla; and the expedition left the Nore on the 4th of April, 1827, for Spitzbergen. At Hammersfeld, in Norway, they took on board eight reindeer and a quantity of moss for their fodder.

After experiencing a series of tremendous gales, being beset in the ice till the 8th of June, the Hecla was safely anchored on the northern coast of Spitzbergen, in Hecla Cove. Parry gave his instructions to his lieutenants, Foster and Crozier, and on the 22d left the ship in the two boats, having named them the Enterprise and Endeavor, with provisions for seventy-onedays. The ice appeared so rugged that the reindeer promised to be of little assistance, and were consequently left behind. The following is an abridged account of the extraordinary method of travelling adopted upon this singular voyage:

"It was my intention," says Parry, "to travel by night and rest by day, thus avoiding the glare resulting from the sun shining from his highest altitudes upon the snow; and proceeding during the milder light shed during his vicinity to the horizon,—for of course, during the summer, he never set at all. This practice so completely inverted the natural order of things that the officers, though possessing chronometers, did not know night from day. When we rose in the evening, we commenced our day by prayers; after which we took off our raccoon-skin sleeping-dresses, and put on our box-cloth travelling-suits. We breakfasted upon warm cocoa heated with spirits of wine—our only fuel—and biscuit: we then travelled five hours, and stopped to dine, and again travelled four, five, or six hours, according to circumstances. It then being early in the morning, we halted for the night, selecting the largest surface of ice we happened to be near for hauling the boat on. Every man then put on dry stockings and fur boots, leaving the wet ones—which were rarely found dry in the morning—to be resumed after their slumbers. After supper the officers and men smoked their pipes, which served to dry the boat and awnings, and often raised the temperature ten degrees. A watch was set to look out for bears, each man alternately doing this duty for one hour. It now being bright day, the evening was ushered in with prayers. After seven hours' sleep, the man appointed to boil the cocoa blew a reveillé upon the bugle, and thus at nightfall the day was recommenced."

The difficulty of travelling was much greater than had been anticipated. The ice, instead of being solid, was composed of small, loose, and rugged masses, with pools of water between them. In their first eight days they made but eight miles'northing. At one time the men dragged the boats only one hundred and fifty yards in two hours. On the 17th of July they reached the latitude of 82° 14′ 28″,—the highest yet attained. On the 18th, after eleven hours' exhausting labor, they advanced but two miles; and on the 20th, having apparently accomplished twelve miles in three days, an observation revealed the alarming fact that they had really advanced but five. The terrible truth burst upon Parry and his officers: the ice over which they were with such effort forcing their weary waywas actually drifting to the south! This intelligence was concealed from the men, who had no suspicion of it, though they often laughingly remarked that they were a long time getting to this eighty-third degree. They were at this time in 82° 43' 5". The next observation extinguished the last ray of hope: after two days' labor, they found themselves in 82° 40'. The drift was carrying them to the south faster than their own exertions took them to the north! In fact, the drift ran four miles a day. It was evidently hopeless to pursue the journey any farther. The floe upon which they slept at night rolled them back to the point they had quitted in the morning. Parry acquainted the men with the disheartening news, and granted them one day's rest.

The ensigns and pennants were now displayed, the party feeling a legitimate pride in having advanced to a point never before reached by human beings, though they had failed in an enterprise now proved beyond the pale of possibility. They returned without incident of moment to England. Parry did not totally abandon the idea of eventually reaching the Pole over the ice, and as late as 1847 was of the opinion that at a different season of the year, before drifting comes on, the project may yet be realized. Still, no mortal man has ever yet set foot upon the pivot of the axis of the globe; and it is not venturing too much to predict that no man ever will.

NAVIGATORS FROZEN IN.CHAPTER L.ROSS'S SECOND VOYAGE—THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE—D'URVILLE—ENDERBY'S LAND—BACK'S VOYAGE IN THE TERROR—THE GREAT WESTERN AND SIRIUS—UNITED STATES' EXPLORING EXPEDITION—THE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT—SIR JOHN FRANKLIN'S LAST VOYAGE IN THE EREBUS AND TERROR—EFFORTS MADE TO RELIEVE HIM—DISCOVERY OF THE SCENE OF HIS FIRST WINTER QUARTERS—THE GRINNELL EXPEDITION—THE ADVANCE AND RESCUE—LIEUTENANT DE HAVEN—DR. KANE—RETURN OF THE EXPEDITION.In the year 1828, Sir John Ross applied to the Government for the means of making a second voyage to the Arctic waters of America, and was refused. The next year, Mr. Sheriff Booth, a gentleman of liberal spirit, offered to assume the pecuniary responsibilities of the expedition, and empowered Ross to make what outlay he thought proper. He bought and equipped the Victory, a packet-ship plying between Liverpool and the Isle of Man. She had a small high-pressure engine, and paddle-wheels which could be lifted out of the water. She sailed in May, 1829. We shall give but a brief account of the incidents of the voyage till we arrive at the event which has made James Clarke Ross, the nephew of Sir John, illustrious,—the discovery of the North Magnetic Pole,—that mysterious spot towards which, forever points the needle of the mariner's compass.While in Baffin's Bay, in June, the Victory lost her foretopmastin a gale; two of the sailors who were reefing the topsails had barely time to escape with their lives. Proceeding through Lancaster Sound, and then descending to the south into Prince Regent's Inlet, Ross arrived, after coasting three hundred miles of undiscovered shore, at a spot which he thought would furnish commodious winter quarters. The whole territory received the name of Boothia, in honor of the patron of the expedition. Here they remained eleven months, beset by ice; not even during the months of July and August, 1830, did the ship stir from the position in which she was held fast. At last, on the 17th of September, she was found to be free, and the delighted crew prepared for a speedy deliverance. The unfortunate vessel sailed only three miles, however, when she was again firmly frozen in. The engine, which had proved a wretched and most inefficient contrivance, was taken out and carried ashore,—an event which was hailed with pleasure by all. "I believe," says Ross, "that there was not a man who ever again wished to see its minutest fragment." Another year of monotony and silence now stared the weather-bound navigators in the face. Six months elapsed before even a land-excursion could be attempted; but in May, 1831, occurred the great discovery to which we have referred.THE VICTORY IN A GALE.Commander James Clarke Ross was the second officer of the ship. He started in April, with a party, to make explorations inland. The dipping-needle had long varied from 88° to 89°,—thuspointing nearly downwards,—90° being, of course, the amount of variation from the horizontal line of the ordinary compass which would have made it directly vertical. Commander Ross was extremely desirous to stand upon the wonderful spot where such an effect would be observed, and joined a number of Esquimaux who were proceeding in the direction where he imagined it lay. He determined, if possible, so to set his foot that the Magnetic Pole should lie between him and the centre of the earth. Arriving at a place where the dipping-needle pointed to 89° 46', and being therefore but fourteen miles from its calculated position, he could no longer brook the delay attendant upon the transportation of the baggage, and set forward upon a rapid march, taking only such articles as were strictly necessary. The tremendous spot was reached at eight in the morning of the 1st of June. The needle marked 89° 59',—one minute from the vertical,—a variation almost imperceptible. We give the particulars of this most interesting event in the words of the discoverer himself:"I believe I must leave it to others to imagine the elation of mind with which we found ourselves now at length arrived at this great object of our ambition: it almost seemed as if we had accomplished every thing we had come so far to see and do,—as if our voyage and all its labors were at an end, and that nothing now remained for us but to return home and be happy for the remainder of our days."We could have wished that a place so important had possessed more of mark or note. It was scarcely censurable to regret that there was not a mountain to indicate a spot to which so much of interest must ever be attached; and I could even have pardoned any one among us who had been so romantic or absurd as to expect that the Magnetic Pole was an object as conspicuous and mysterious as the fabled mountain of Sinbad,—that it even was a mountain of iron or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc. But Nature had here erected no monument to denotethe spot which she had chosen as the centre of one of her greatest powers."As soon as I had satisfied my own mind, I made known to the party the gratifying result of all our joint labor; and it was then that, amidst mutual congratulations, we fixed the British flag on the spot and took possession of the North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in the name of Great Britain and King William the Fourth. We had abundance of materials for building, in the fragments of limestone which covered the beach; and we therefore erected a cairn of some magnitude, under which we buried a canister containing a record of the interesting fact,—only regretting that we had not the means of constructing a pyramid of more importance and of strength sufficient to withstand the assaults of time and the Esquimaux. Had it been a pyramid as large as that of Cheops, I am not sure that it would have done more than satisfy our ambition under the feelings of that exciting day. The latitude of this spot is 70° 5' 17", and its longitude 96° 46′ 45″ west from Greenwich."We must remark in this connection that the fixation of thelatitudeof the Magnetic Pole was the only important element of this discovery; for, as the Magnetic Pole revolves about the North Pole at the rate of 11′ 4″ a year, it consequently changes its annuallongitudeby that amount. A quarter of a century has elapsed since its longitude was settled for the year 1831; and this lapse of time involves a change of place of between four and five degrees. It requires no less than eighteen hundred and ninety years to accomplish the cycle of revolution. The latitude of the Pole of course remains unchanged. It will always be sufficient glory for Ross to have stood upon the spot where the Pole then was: the fact that the spot then so marvellous has since ceased to be so is assuredly no cause for detracting from his merit. After this discovery the party returned to the ship.In September the ice broke up, and the Victory, which had the previous year sailed three miles, this year sailed four. She was again immediately frozen in: the men's courage gave way, and the scurvy began to appear. Their only hope of a final deliverance seemed to be to proceed overland to the spot where the Fury had been lost under Parry in 1824, and to get her supplies and boats. The distance was one hundred and eighty miles to the north. They drank a parting glass to the Victory on the 29th of May, 1832, and nailed her colors to the mast. After a laborious journey of one month, they reached Fury Beach, where they found three of the boats washed away, but several still left. These were ready for sea on the 1st of August, when the whole party embarked. They were compelled to return in October, and made preparations for their fourth Polar winter. The season was one of great severity: in February, 1833, the first death by scurvy took place. Ross himself and several of the seamen were attacked by the disease. It was not till August that the boats were again able to move. They reached Barrow's Strait on the 17th, and on the morning of the 26th descried a sail. They made signals by burning wet powder, and succeeded in attracting the stranger's attention. She was a whaler, and had been formerly commanded by Ross himself. Thus they were rescued. After a month's delay, the vessel, now filled to its utmost capacity with blubber, sailed for Hull, in England. There Ross and his officers received a public entertainment from the mayor and corporation. The former then repaired to London, reported himself to the Secretary of the Admiralty, and obtained an audience of the king. His Majesty accepted the dedication of his journal, and allowed him to add the name of William the Fourth to the Magnetic Pole. He learned that he had been given up for lost long since, and that parties had been sent out in search of him.All concerned in this interesting expedition were rewarded by Parliament. Mr. Booth was shortly after knighted; CommanderRoss was made post-captain; the other officers received speedy promotion; and Government paid the crew the wages which had accrued beyond the period of fifteen months for which they were engaged,—amounting in all to £4580. A select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider the claims of Captain Ross himself, and concluded its labors by recommending that a sum of £5000 be voted to him by Parliament.In 1825, Captain d'Urville was sent by Charles X. of France upon a voyage similar to those performed by Freycinet and Duperrey. As we have already had occasion to say, this officer was fortunate enough to return to France with the positive proofs of the destruction of the vessels of Lapérouse upon the island of Vanikoro. He surveyed the whole of the Feejee archipelago, and restored upon French maps its native name of Viti. The results of d'Urville's labors are comprised in twelve octavo volumes, sixty-three charts, twelve plans, eight hundred and sixty-six designs representing the various island nations, their arms, dwellings, &c., and four hundred landscapes and marine views. Admiral d'Urville ranks as the first French navigator of this century.In 1830, two rich shipping-merchants of London, by the name of Enderby, sent Captain Biscoe to the Antarctic Ocean to fish for seals, in the brig Tula and the cutter Lively, giving him directions to seek for land in high southern latitudes. In February, 1831,—being then as far south as the sixty-ninth parallel and in 12° west,—he saw distinct and positive signs of land. On the 27th, in 66° of latitude and 47° of longitude, he convinced himself of the existence of a long reach of land; but huge islands of ice prevented his approaching it. The magnificence of the aurora australis, appearing now under the forms of grand architectural columns and now as the fringes of tapestry, drew the attention of the sailors so constantly towards the heavens that they neglected to watch the ship's track amidmountains of floating and tumbling ice. Captain Biscoe gave to the discovery the name of Enderby's Land. Farther to the west he discovered an island, which he named Adelaide, in honor of the Queen of England. It presents an imposing appearance,—a tall peak burying itself in the clouds and often peering out above them. Its base is surrounded with a dazzling girdle of snow and ice, which extends, though sapped and excavated by the action of the waves, some nine hundred feet into the sea.In 1836, the English Government appointed Captain George Back—who had lately been upon a land-expedition in the American Arctic regions in search of Captain and Commander Ross—to the since celebrated ship Terror, for the purpose of determining the western coast-line of Prince Regent's Inlet. The voyage, though entirely unsuccessful, is one of the most remarkable on record,—showing as it did a power of resistance and endurance in a ship which till then was not believed to belong either to iron or heart of oak. Back proceeded no farther than Baffin's Bay, the Terror remaining for ten months fast in the gripe of its "cradle" or "ice-wagon," as the men called the huge floating berg upon which she rested. He was knighted on his return, and his sturdy ship was put out of commission and docked. It is a subject of regret that so splendid a specimen of marine architecture, as far as strength and solidity are concerned, should have met the fate which she has encountered. Where she is no mortal knows, except perhaps a few inaccessible Esquimaux; for she has perished with her lost consort, the Erebus, and their hapless commander, Sir John Franklin.In the year 1838, on the 23d of April, two ocean-steamers—the first with the exception of the Savannah—entered the harbor of New York. They were the Sirius and the Great Western. They had been expected, and their arrival was the signal for general rejoicings and the theme of universal congratulation. Crowds of people—men, women, and children—assembled alongthe wharves to view the unwonted spectacle. The Sirius was a vessel of seven hundred tons and three hundred and twenty horse-power, and had previously plied between Liverpool and Cork. She had left the latter port on the 4th of April, and had therefore been nineteen days upon the passage. The Great Western was a new ship: she was of thirteen hundred and forty tons; her extreme length was two hundred and thirty-six feet; her depth of hold, twenty-three feet; breadth of beam, thirty-five feet; diameter of wheels, twenty-eight feet; length of paddle-boards, ten feet; diameter of cylinder, six feet; length of stroke, seven feet. She had four boilers, and could carry eight hundred tons of coal,—sufficient for twenty-six days' consumption. She had left Bristol on the 8th of April, and had accomplished the voyage in fifteen days and five hours. Her mean daily rate was two hundred and forty miles, or nine miles an hour, with unfavorable weather and strong head winds. She was expected to stop either at the Azores or at Halifax, but succeeded in making the passage direct. She consumed but four hundred and fifty tons of coal out of six hundred. This event was looked upon by all as an earnest of the complete triumph of ocean steam-navigation; and the Great Western is regarded by the people of the two countries as the pioneer ship among the many noble vessels that have plied upon the great Atlantic ferry. The Britannia—the first vessel of the Cunard line to cross the ocean—arrived at Boston on the 18th of July, 1840, after a passage of fourteen days and eight hours.In this same year, (1838,) the United States' Exploring Expedition,—consisting of the Vincennes, a sloop-of-war of twenty guns, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander-in-chief; the Peacock, eighteen-gun sloop-of-war, William L. Hudson, commanding; the Porpoise, ten-gun brig; the Relief, exploring vessel; and the schooners Flying-Fish and Sea-Gull,—sailed from Hampton Roads. Its objects were to explore the Southern and Pacific Oceans; to ascertain, if possible, the situation ofthat part of the Antarctic continent supposed to lie to the south of New Holland, and to make researches and surveys of importance to ships navigating the Polynesian seas. The squadron was absent four years, and accomplished a vast amount of arduous labor interesting to science and invaluable to commerce. We propose to speak only of what became afterwards its prominent feature,—the supposed discovery of an Antarctic continent.On the 15th of February, 1840, land was seen in longitude 106° 40' E. and latitude 65° 57' S. The next day the ships were within seven miles of it, and, "by measurement, the extent of the coast of the Antarctic continent then in sight was made seventy-five miles." The men landed on an ice-island, where they found stones, boulders, gravel, sand, and clay. Everybody wished to possess a piece of the Antarctic continent; and many fragments of red sandstone and basalt were carried away. The island was believed to have been detached from the neighboring land. Subsequent voyages, however, have thrown great doubts upon the accuracy of these assertions. James Clarke Ross, who was sent with the Erebus and Terror, in 1839, to the South Pole, was informed at Van Diemen's Land of Wilkes' alleged discovery. He reached the spot in January, 1841, and, instead of an Antarctic continent, found water five hundred fathoms deep. The existence of such a continent, therefore, must be regarded as altogether hypothetical. "It is natural," says the London Athenæum, "that a commander of his country's first scientific expedition should wish to make the most of it; but Science is so august in her nature and so severe in her rules that she declines recording in her archives any sentence as truth on which there rests the slightest liability of doubt: in all such cases she prefers the Scotch verdict,—'Not proven.'"Though at this period the discovery of a Northwest Passage—if one existed—was no longer expected to afford a short and commodious commercial route to the Indies and to China, yetthe scientific and romantic interest of the subject still exerted a powerful effect on both nations and Governments. Great Britain resolved to make one last attempt, and, selecting two vessels whose fame was now world-wide, appointed Sir John Franklin to their command,—the Erebus being his flag-ship, with Captain Crozier, as his second, in the Terror. The officers and crew, all told, numbered one hundred and thirty-eight picked and resolute men. The instructions given to Franklin were to proceed, with a store-ship ordered to accompany him, as far up Davis' Straits as that vessel could safely go, there to transfer her provisions and send her home. He was then to get into Baffin's Bay, enter Lancaster Sound, thread Barrow's Straits, and follow Parry's track due west to Melville Island, in the Polar Sea. Here the instructions, with an assurance which seems incredible now, begged the whole question of a Northwest Passage, and directed him to proceed the remaining nine hundred miles which separate that point from Behring's Strait,—a region which it was hoped would be found free from obstruction. He was not to stop to examine any opening to the northward, but to push resolutely on to Behring's Strait, and return home by the Sandwich Islands and Panama. He sailed from the Thames on the 19th of May, 1845. He received the store-ship's cargo in Davis' Straits, and then despatched her home. His two ships were seen by a whaler named the Prince of Wales on the 26th of July: they were in the very middle of Baffin's Bay, moored to an iceberg and waiting for open water.Two years passed away, and, nothing being heard from them, the public anxiety respecting them became very great. The Government determined to attempt their rescue, and sent out three several expeditions in 1848. The two first—one overland to the Polar Sea, under Richardson and Rae, another by Behring's Strait, in the ships Herald and Plover—totally failed of success, as they were founded upon the supposition that Franklin had advanced farther westward than Parry in1820,—a supposition altogether unlikely. The third—consisting of the Enterprise and Investigator, under Captain Sir James Clarke Ross—was equally unsuccessful, though conducted in a quarter where success was at least possible. At Port Leopold, at the mouth of Prince Regent's Inlet, Ross formed a large depôt of provisions,—the locality having been admirably chosen, being upon Parry's route to the Polar Sea, and upon any track Franklin would be likely to take on his way back, in case he had already advanced beyond it. His men built a house upon shore of their spare spars, and covered it with such canvas as they could dispense with. They lengthened the Investigator's steam-launch, so that it would be capable of carrying Franklin and his crew safely to the whalers' rendezvous, and left it. They then made their way through the ice to Davis' Straits, and arrived in England early in November, 1849.The probable fate of Franklin now absorbed all minds, and the Admiralty, Parliament, the public, and the press eagerly discussed every theory which would account for his prolonged absence, and every means by which succor could be sent to him. The Admiralty offered a reward of one hundred guineas for accurate information concerning him. Lady Franklin offered the stimulus of £2000, and a second of £3000, to successful search; and the British Government sought to enlist the services of the whalers by announcing a bonus of £20,000. A vessel was sent to land provisions and coal at the entrance to Lancaster Sound. Three new expeditions were sent out in 1850 by the Government, besides one by public subscription, assisted by the Hudson Bay Company, under Sir John Ross, and another by Lady Franklin. They accomplished wonders of seamanship, and their crews endured the most harassing trials; but we have no space to chronicle any thing beyond the finding of a few distinct but unproductive traces of the missing adventurers, which occurred in the following manner:Captain Ommaney, of the Assistance and Intrepid, landed on Cape Riley, in Wellington Channel, late in August. There he observed sledge-tracks and a pavement of small stones which had evidently been the floor of a tent. Around were a number of birds' bones and fragments of meat-tins. Upon Beechey Island, three miles distant, were found a cairn or mound constructed of layers of meat-tins filled with gravel, the embankment of a house, the remains of a carpenter's shop and an armorer's forge, with remnants of rope and clothing; a pair of gloves laid out to dry, with stones upon them to prevent their blowing away. The oval outline of a garden was still distinguishable. But the most interesting and valuable result of these investigations was the finding of three graves with inscriptions, one of which will show the tenor of the whole:"Sacred to the memory of William Braine, R.M., of H.M.S. Erebus, who died April 3, 1846, aged thirty-two years.Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.—Josh. xxiv. 15."This and one of the other inscriptions, dated in January, seemed to fix at this spot the first winter quarters of Franklin,—for 1845-46. They also show that but three men died during the winter; and three out of one hundred and thirty-eight is not a high proportion of mortality. The seven hundred empty meat-tins seemed to show that the consumption of meat had been moderate; for the ships started with twenty-four thousand canisters. This was the substance of the intelligence obtained during this year of the fate of the wanderers; and it was, as will be noticed, already five years old.An expedition was also fitted out for the search in 1850, under the combined auspices of Henry Grinnell, Esq., a merchant of New York, and the United States Navy Department,—the former furnishing the ships and the means, the latter the men and the discipline. Two hermaphrodite brigs,—the Advance and Rescue,—of one hundred and forty-four and ninety tonsrespectively, manned by thirty-eight men, all told, and strengthened for Arctic duty beyond all precedent, were prepared for the service. They were placed under the command of Lieutenant De Haven,—Dr. E. K. Kane, of the Navy, being appointed surgeon and naturalist to the squadron. They sailed from New York on the 23d of May, and in less than a month descried the gaunt coast of Greenland at the moment when the distinction between day and night began to be lost. The Danish inhabitants of the settlement at Lievely made them such presents of furs as their own scanty wardrobes permitted. Two sailors, complaining of sickness, were landed at Disco Island, thence to make the best of their way home.DR. KANE.DR. KANE PASSING THROUGH DEVIL'S NIP.Thus far the weather had been favorable, and they passed the seventy-fourth degree without meeting ice. On the 7th of July, being still in Baffin's Bay, they encountered the pack. It was summer-ice, consisting of closely-set but separate floes. They could not make over three miles a day headway through it,—which they considered a useless expenditure of labor. They remained beset for twenty-one days, when the pack opened in various directions. The ships now reached Melville Bay, on the east side of Baffin's Bay,—Lancaster Sound, through which they were to pass, being upon the west. Melville Bay, from the fact that it is always crowded with icebergs, and presents in a bird's-eye view all the combined horrors and perils of Arctic navigation, has received the appellation of the "Devil's Nip." Across this formidable indentation the two vessels made their weary way, occupying five weeks in the transit. A steam-tug would have towed them across in forty-eight hours. In the middle of August the vessels entered Lancaster Sound, and, on the morning of the 21st, overhauled the Felix, engaged in the search, under the veteran Sir John Ross. The next day, the Prince Albert, one of Lady Franklin's ships, was seen, and, soon after, the intelligence was received of the discovery of traces of Franklin and his men. The navigators of both nations visited Beechey Island and saw there the evidences which we have already mentioned. The Advance and Rescue now strove in vain to urge their way to Wellington Channel. The sun travelled far to the south, and the brief summer was rapidly coming to a close. The cold increased, and the fires were not yet lighted below. On the 12th of September the Rescue was swept from her moorings by the ice and partially disabled. The pack in which they were enveloped, though not yet beset, was evidently drifting they knew not whither. The commander, convinced that all westward progress was vain for the season, resolved to return homeward. The vessels' heads were turned eastward, and slowly forced a passage through the reluctant ice. On the evening of the 14th of September, Dr. Kane was endeavoring, with the thermometerfar below zero, to commit a few words to his journal, when he heard De Haven's voice. "Doctor," he said, "the ice has caught us: we are frozen up."The Advance was now destined to undergo treatment similar to that suffered by the Terror under Captain Back. For eight mortal months she was carried, cradled in the ice, backwards and forwards in Wellington Channel, wherever the winds and currents listed. At first, before the ice around them had become solid, they were exposed to constant peril from "nips" of floating and besieging floes; but these huge tablets soon became a protection by themselves receiving and warding off subsequent attacks. Early in October, the vessels were more firmly fixed than a jewel in its setting.They now made preparations for passing the winter. The two crews were collected in the Advance. Until the stoves could be got up, a lard-lamp was burned in the cabin, by which the temperature was raised to 12° above zero. The condensed moisture upon the beams from so many breaths caused them to drip perpetually, till canvas gutters were fitted up, which carried off a gallon of water a day. The three stoves were soon ready, and these, together with the cooking-galley, diffused warmth through the common room formed by knocking the forecastle and cabin into one. Light was furnished by four argand and three bear's-fat lamps. The entire deck of the Advance was covered with a housing of thick felt. On the 9th of November their preparations were fairly completed.The sun ceased to rise after the 15th of November: after that, the east was as dark at nine in the morning as at midnight; at eleven there was a faint twilight, and at noon a streak of brown far away to the south. The store-room would have furnished an amateur geologist with an admirable cabinet, so totally were the eatables and drinkables changed in appearance by the cold. "Dried apples and peaches assumed the appearance of chalcedony; sour-krout was mica, the laminæ of whichwere with difficulty separated by a chisel; butter and lard were passable marble; pork and beef were rare specimens of Florentine mosaic; while a barrel of lamp-oil, stripped of the staves, resembled a sandstone garden-roller."The crews soon began to suffer in health and spirits: their faces became white, like celery kept from the light. They had strange dreams and heard strange sounds. The scurvy appeared, and old wounds bled afresh. Dr. Kane endeavored to combat the disease by acting upon the imagination of the sufferers. He ordered an old tar with a stiff knee to place the member in front of a strong magnet and let it vibrate to and fro like a pendulum. A wonderful and complete cure was thus effected. He practised all sorts of amiable deceptions upon his patients,—making them take medicine in salad and gargles in beer. Not a man was lost during the voyage.From time to time fissures would open in the ice around them with an explosion like that of heavy artillery. It became necessary to make preparations for abandoning the vessel, and sledges, boats, and provisions were gotten ready for an emergency. The men were drilled to leave the ship in a mass at the word of command. The crisis seemed to be upon them many a time and oft; but the Advance held firmly together, and the ice around her gradually became solid as granite again. Dr. Kane lectured at intervals on scientific subjects, till the return of light brought with it a return of hope and animal spirits. On the 29th of January, 1851, the sun rose above the horizon, after an absence of eighty-six days. "Never," says Dr. Kane, "till the grave-clod or the ice covers me may I forego this blessing of blessings again! I looked at him thankfully, with a great globus in my throat."The ice-pack did not open till the close of March. Previous to this, all the successive symptoms of the coming thaw presented themselves. The ice began to smoke, and the surface became first moist and then soft. It was soon too warm toskate, and the cabin-lamps, that had burned for four months without cessation, were extinguished. The mercury rose to 32°; the housings were removed from the Advance, and the Rescue's men returned to their deserted ship. The saw was put in motion early in May; but the grand disruption of the ice, which was either to free the ships or crush them, did not occur till the 5th of June. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the first crack was heard, and the water, spirting up, was seen following the track of the fissure. In half an hour the ice was seamed with cracks in every direction, some of them spreading into rivers twenty feet across. The Rescue was released at once: the coating of the Advance held on for three days more, parting at last under the weight of a single man. The liberated ships soon made the Greenland coast, at Godhavn, where they spent five days in reposing, in celebrating the Fourth of July, and in splicing the main-brace,—this latter being a convivial, and not a mechanical, operation. The vessels arrived safely at the Brooklyn Navy-Yard on the 1st of October, 1851. The vessels were restored to Mr. Grinnell, with the stipulation that the Secretary of the Navy might claim them, in case of need, for further search in the spring.THE SEAL.

NAVIGATORS FROZEN IN.

NAVIGATORS FROZEN IN.

NAVIGATORS FROZEN IN.

ROSS'S SECOND VOYAGE—THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE—D'URVILLE—ENDERBY'S LAND—BACK'S VOYAGE IN THE TERROR—THE GREAT WESTERN AND SIRIUS—UNITED STATES' EXPLORING EXPEDITION—THE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT—SIR JOHN FRANKLIN'S LAST VOYAGE IN THE EREBUS AND TERROR—EFFORTS MADE TO RELIEVE HIM—DISCOVERY OF THE SCENE OF HIS FIRST WINTER QUARTERS—THE GRINNELL EXPEDITION—THE ADVANCE AND RESCUE—LIEUTENANT DE HAVEN—DR. KANE—RETURN OF THE EXPEDITION.

In the year 1828, Sir John Ross applied to the Government for the means of making a second voyage to the Arctic waters of America, and was refused. The next year, Mr. Sheriff Booth, a gentleman of liberal spirit, offered to assume the pecuniary responsibilities of the expedition, and empowered Ross to make what outlay he thought proper. He bought and equipped the Victory, a packet-ship plying between Liverpool and the Isle of Man. She had a small high-pressure engine, and paddle-wheels which could be lifted out of the water. She sailed in May, 1829. We shall give but a brief account of the incidents of the voyage till we arrive at the event which has made James Clarke Ross, the nephew of Sir John, illustrious,—the discovery of the North Magnetic Pole,—that mysterious spot towards which, forever points the needle of the mariner's compass.

While in Baffin's Bay, in June, the Victory lost her foretopmastin a gale; two of the sailors who were reefing the topsails had barely time to escape with their lives. Proceeding through Lancaster Sound, and then descending to the south into Prince Regent's Inlet, Ross arrived, after coasting three hundred miles of undiscovered shore, at a spot which he thought would furnish commodious winter quarters. The whole territory received the name of Boothia, in honor of the patron of the expedition. Here they remained eleven months, beset by ice; not even during the months of July and August, 1830, did the ship stir from the position in which she was held fast. At last, on the 17th of September, she was found to be free, and the delighted crew prepared for a speedy deliverance. The unfortunate vessel sailed only three miles, however, when she was again firmly frozen in. The engine, which had proved a wretched and most inefficient contrivance, was taken out and carried ashore,—an event which was hailed with pleasure by all. "I believe," says Ross, "that there was not a man who ever again wished to see its minutest fragment." Another year of monotony and silence now stared the weather-bound navigators in the face. Six months elapsed before even a land-excursion could be attempted; but in May, 1831, occurred the great discovery to which we have referred.

THE VICTORY IN A GALE.

THE VICTORY IN A GALE.

THE VICTORY IN A GALE.

Commander James Clarke Ross was the second officer of the ship. He started in April, with a party, to make explorations inland. The dipping-needle had long varied from 88° to 89°,—thuspointing nearly downwards,—90° being, of course, the amount of variation from the horizontal line of the ordinary compass which would have made it directly vertical. Commander Ross was extremely desirous to stand upon the wonderful spot where such an effect would be observed, and joined a number of Esquimaux who were proceeding in the direction where he imagined it lay. He determined, if possible, so to set his foot that the Magnetic Pole should lie between him and the centre of the earth. Arriving at a place where the dipping-needle pointed to 89° 46', and being therefore but fourteen miles from its calculated position, he could no longer brook the delay attendant upon the transportation of the baggage, and set forward upon a rapid march, taking only such articles as were strictly necessary. The tremendous spot was reached at eight in the morning of the 1st of June. The needle marked 89° 59',—one minute from the vertical,—a variation almost imperceptible. We give the particulars of this most interesting event in the words of the discoverer himself:

"I believe I must leave it to others to imagine the elation of mind with which we found ourselves now at length arrived at this great object of our ambition: it almost seemed as if we had accomplished every thing we had come so far to see and do,—as if our voyage and all its labors were at an end, and that nothing now remained for us but to return home and be happy for the remainder of our days.

"We could have wished that a place so important had possessed more of mark or note. It was scarcely censurable to regret that there was not a mountain to indicate a spot to which so much of interest must ever be attached; and I could even have pardoned any one among us who had been so romantic or absurd as to expect that the Magnetic Pole was an object as conspicuous and mysterious as the fabled mountain of Sinbad,—that it even was a mountain of iron or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc. But Nature had here erected no monument to denotethe spot which she had chosen as the centre of one of her greatest powers.

"As soon as I had satisfied my own mind, I made known to the party the gratifying result of all our joint labor; and it was then that, amidst mutual congratulations, we fixed the British flag on the spot and took possession of the North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in the name of Great Britain and King William the Fourth. We had abundance of materials for building, in the fragments of limestone which covered the beach; and we therefore erected a cairn of some magnitude, under which we buried a canister containing a record of the interesting fact,—only regretting that we had not the means of constructing a pyramid of more importance and of strength sufficient to withstand the assaults of time and the Esquimaux. Had it been a pyramid as large as that of Cheops, I am not sure that it would have done more than satisfy our ambition under the feelings of that exciting day. The latitude of this spot is 70° 5' 17", and its longitude 96° 46′ 45″ west from Greenwich."

We must remark in this connection that the fixation of thelatitudeof the Magnetic Pole was the only important element of this discovery; for, as the Magnetic Pole revolves about the North Pole at the rate of 11′ 4″ a year, it consequently changes its annuallongitudeby that amount. A quarter of a century has elapsed since its longitude was settled for the year 1831; and this lapse of time involves a change of place of between four and five degrees. It requires no less than eighteen hundred and ninety years to accomplish the cycle of revolution. The latitude of the Pole of course remains unchanged. It will always be sufficient glory for Ross to have stood upon the spot where the Pole then was: the fact that the spot then so marvellous has since ceased to be so is assuredly no cause for detracting from his merit. After this discovery the party returned to the ship.

In September the ice broke up, and the Victory, which had the previous year sailed three miles, this year sailed four. She was again immediately frozen in: the men's courage gave way, and the scurvy began to appear. Their only hope of a final deliverance seemed to be to proceed overland to the spot where the Fury had been lost under Parry in 1824, and to get her supplies and boats. The distance was one hundred and eighty miles to the north. They drank a parting glass to the Victory on the 29th of May, 1832, and nailed her colors to the mast. After a laborious journey of one month, they reached Fury Beach, where they found three of the boats washed away, but several still left. These were ready for sea on the 1st of August, when the whole party embarked. They were compelled to return in October, and made preparations for their fourth Polar winter. The season was one of great severity: in February, 1833, the first death by scurvy took place. Ross himself and several of the seamen were attacked by the disease. It was not till August that the boats were again able to move. They reached Barrow's Strait on the 17th, and on the morning of the 26th descried a sail. They made signals by burning wet powder, and succeeded in attracting the stranger's attention. She was a whaler, and had been formerly commanded by Ross himself. Thus they were rescued. After a month's delay, the vessel, now filled to its utmost capacity with blubber, sailed for Hull, in England. There Ross and his officers received a public entertainment from the mayor and corporation. The former then repaired to London, reported himself to the Secretary of the Admiralty, and obtained an audience of the king. His Majesty accepted the dedication of his journal, and allowed him to add the name of William the Fourth to the Magnetic Pole. He learned that he had been given up for lost long since, and that parties had been sent out in search of him.

All concerned in this interesting expedition were rewarded by Parliament. Mr. Booth was shortly after knighted; CommanderRoss was made post-captain; the other officers received speedy promotion; and Government paid the crew the wages which had accrued beyond the period of fifteen months for which they were engaged,—amounting in all to £4580. A select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider the claims of Captain Ross himself, and concluded its labors by recommending that a sum of £5000 be voted to him by Parliament.

In 1825, Captain d'Urville was sent by Charles X. of France upon a voyage similar to those performed by Freycinet and Duperrey. As we have already had occasion to say, this officer was fortunate enough to return to France with the positive proofs of the destruction of the vessels of Lapérouse upon the island of Vanikoro. He surveyed the whole of the Feejee archipelago, and restored upon French maps its native name of Viti. The results of d'Urville's labors are comprised in twelve octavo volumes, sixty-three charts, twelve plans, eight hundred and sixty-six designs representing the various island nations, their arms, dwellings, &c., and four hundred landscapes and marine views. Admiral d'Urville ranks as the first French navigator of this century.

In 1830, two rich shipping-merchants of London, by the name of Enderby, sent Captain Biscoe to the Antarctic Ocean to fish for seals, in the brig Tula and the cutter Lively, giving him directions to seek for land in high southern latitudes. In February, 1831,—being then as far south as the sixty-ninth parallel and in 12° west,—he saw distinct and positive signs of land. On the 27th, in 66° of latitude and 47° of longitude, he convinced himself of the existence of a long reach of land; but huge islands of ice prevented his approaching it. The magnificence of the aurora australis, appearing now under the forms of grand architectural columns and now as the fringes of tapestry, drew the attention of the sailors so constantly towards the heavens that they neglected to watch the ship's track amidmountains of floating and tumbling ice. Captain Biscoe gave to the discovery the name of Enderby's Land. Farther to the west he discovered an island, which he named Adelaide, in honor of the Queen of England. It presents an imposing appearance,—a tall peak burying itself in the clouds and often peering out above them. Its base is surrounded with a dazzling girdle of snow and ice, which extends, though sapped and excavated by the action of the waves, some nine hundred feet into the sea.

In 1836, the English Government appointed Captain George Back—who had lately been upon a land-expedition in the American Arctic regions in search of Captain and Commander Ross—to the since celebrated ship Terror, for the purpose of determining the western coast-line of Prince Regent's Inlet. The voyage, though entirely unsuccessful, is one of the most remarkable on record,—showing as it did a power of resistance and endurance in a ship which till then was not believed to belong either to iron or heart of oak. Back proceeded no farther than Baffin's Bay, the Terror remaining for ten months fast in the gripe of its "cradle" or "ice-wagon," as the men called the huge floating berg upon which she rested. He was knighted on his return, and his sturdy ship was put out of commission and docked. It is a subject of regret that so splendid a specimen of marine architecture, as far as strength and solidity are concerned, should have met the fate which she has encountered. Where she is no mortal knows, except perhaps a few inaccessible Esquimaux; for she has perished with her lost consort, the Erebus, and their hapless commander, Sir John Franklin.

In the year 1838, on the 23d of April, two ocean-steamers—the first with the exception of the Savannah—entered the harbor of New York. They were the Sirius and the Great Western. They had been expected, and their arrival was the signal for general rejoicings and the theme of universal congratulation. Crowds of people—men, women, and children—assembled alongthe wharves to view the unwonted spectacle. The Sirius was a vessel of seven hundred tons and three hundred and twenty horse-power, and had previously plied between Liverpool and Cork. She had left the latter port on the 4th of April, and had therefore been nineteen days upon the passage. The Great Western was a new ship: she was of thirteen hundred and forty tons; her extreme length was two hundred and thirty-six feet; her depth of hold, twenty-three feet; breadth of beam, thirty-five feet; diameter of wheels, twenty-eight feet; length of paddle-boards, ten feet; diameter of cylinder, six feet; length of stroke, seven feet. She had four boilers, and could carry eight hundred tons of coal,—sufficient for twenty-six days' consumption. She had left Bristol on the 8th of April, and had accomplished the voyage in fifteen days and five hours. Her mean daily rate was two hundred and forty miles, or nine miles an hour, with unfavorable weather and strong head winds. She was expected to stop either at the Azores or at Halifax, but succeeded in making the passage direct. She consumed but four hundred and fifty tons of coal out of six hundred. This event was looked upon by all as an earnest of the complete triumph of ocean steam-navigation; and the Great Western is regarded by the people of the two countries as the pioneer ship among the many noble vessels that have plied upon the great Atlantic ferry. The Britannia—the first vessel of the Cunard line to cross the ocean—arrived at Boston on the 18th of July, 1840, after a passage of fourteen days and eight hours.

In this same year, (1838,) the United States' Exploring Expedition,—consisting of the Vincennes, a sloop-of-war of twenty guns, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander-in-chief; the Peacock, eighteen-gun sloop-of-war, William L. Hudson, commanding; the Porpoise, ten-gun brig; the Relief, exploring vessel; and the schooners Flying-Fish and Sea-Gull,—sailed from Hampton Roads. Its objects were to explore the Southern and Pacific Oceans; to ascertain, if possible, the situation ofthat part of the Antarctic continent supposed to lie to the south of New Holland, and to make researches and surveys of importance to ships navigating the Polynesian seas. The squadron was absent four years, and accomplished a vast amount of arduous labor interesting to science and invaluable to commerce. We propose to speak only of what became afterwards its prominent feature,—the supposed discovery of an Antarctic continent.

On the 15th of February, 1840, land was seen in longitude 106° 40' E. and latitude 65° 57' S. The next day the ships were within seven miles of it, and, "by measurement, the extent of the coast of the Antarctic continent then in sight was made seventy-five miles." The men landed on an ice-island, where they found stones, boulders, gravel, sand, and clay. Everybody wished to possess a piece of the Antarctic continent; and many fragments of red sandstone and basalt were carried away. The island was believed to have been detached from the neighboring land. Subsequent voyages, however, have thrown great doubts upon the accuracy of these assertions. James Clarke Ross, who was sent with the Erebus and Terror, in 1839, to the South Pole, was informed at Van Diemen's Land of Wilkes' alleged discovery. He reached the spot in January, 1841, and, instead of an Antarctic continent, found water five hundred fathoms deep. The existence of such a continent, therefore, must be regarded as altogether hypothetical. "It is natural," says the London Athenæum, "that a commander of his country's first scientific expedition should wish to make the most of it; but Science is so august in her nature and so severe in her rules that she declines recording in her archives any sentence as truth on which there rests the slightest liability of doubt: in all such cases she prefers the Scotch verdict,—'Not proven.'"

Though at this period the discovery of a Northwest Passage—if one existed—was no longer expected to afford a short and commodious commercial route to the Indies and to China, yetthe scientific and romantic interest of the subject still exerted a powerful effect on both nations and Governments. Great Britain resolved to make one last attempt, and, selecting two vessels whose fame was now world-wide, appointed Sir John Franklin to their command,—the Erebus being his flag-ship, with Captain Crozier, as his second, in the Terror. The officers and crew, all told, numbered one hundred and thirty-eight picked and resolute men. The instructions given to Franklin were to proceed, with a store-ship ordered to accompany him, as far up Davis' Straits as that vessel could safely go, there to transfer her provisions and send her home. He was then to get into Baffin's Bay, enter Lancaster Sound, thread Barrow's Straits, and follow Parry's track due west to Melville Island, in the Polar Sea. Here the instructions, with an assurance which seems incredible now, begged the whole question of a Northwest Passage, and directed him to proceed the remaining nine hundred miles which separate that point from Behring's Strait,—a region which it was hoped would be found free from obstruction. He was not to stop to examine any opening to the northward, but to push resolutely on to Behring's Strait, and return home by the Sandwich Islands and Panama. He sailed from the Thames on the 19th of May, 1845. He received the store-ship's cargo in Davis' Straits, and then despatched her home. His two ships were seen by a whaler named the Prince of Wales on the 26th of July: they were in the very middle of Baffin's Bay, moored to an iceberg and waiting for open water.

Two years passed away, and, nothing being heard from them, the public anxiety respecting them became very great. The Government determined to attempt their rescue, and sent out three several expeditions in 1848. The two first—one overland to the Polar Sea, under Richardson and Rae, another by Behring's Strait, in the ships Herald and Plover—totally failed of success, as they were founded upon the supposition that Franklin had advanced farther westward than Parry in1820,—a supposition altogether unlikely. The third—consisting of the Enterprise and Investigator, under Captain Sir James Clarke Ross—was equally unsuccessful, though conducted in a quarter where success was at least possible. At Port Leopold, at the mouth of Prince Regent's Inlet, Ross formed a large depôt of provisions,—the locality having been admirably chosen, being upon Parry's route to the Polar Sea, and upon any track Franklin would be likely to take on his way back, in case he had already advanced beyond it. His men built a house upon shore of their spare spars, and covered it with such canvas as they could dispense with. They lengthened the Investigator's steam-launch, so that it would be capable of carrying Franklin and his crew safely to the whalers' rendezvous, and left it. They then made their way through the ice to Davis' Straits, and arrived in England early in November, 1849.

The probable fate of Franklin now absorbed all minds, and the Admiralty, Parliament, the public, and the press eagerly discussed every theory which would account for his prolonged absence, and every means by which succor could be sent to him. The Admiralty offered a reward of one hundred guineas for accurate information concerning him. Lady Franklin offered the stimulus of £2000, and a second of £3000, to successful search; and the British Government sought to enlist the services of the whalers by announcing a bonus of £20,000. A vessel was sent to land provisions and coal at the entrance to Lancaster Sound. Three new expeditions were sent out in 1850 by the Government, besides one by public subscription, assisted by the Hudson Bay Company, under Sir John Ross, and another by Lady Franklin. They accomplished wonders of seamanship, and their crews endured the most harassing trials; but we have no space to chronicle any thing beyond the finding of a few distinct but unproductive traces of the missing adventurers, which occurred in the following manner:

Captain Ommaney, of the Assistance and Intrepid, landed on Cape Riley, in Wellington Channel, late in August. There he observed sledge-tracks and a pavement of small stones which had evidently been the floor of a tent. Around were a number of birds' bones and fragments of meat-tins. Upon Beechey Island, three miles distant, were found a cairn or mound constructed of layers of meat-tins filled with gravel, the embankment of a house, the remains of a carpenter's shop and an armorer's forge, with remnants of rope and clothing; a pair of gloves laid out to dry, with stones upon them to prevent their blowing away. The oval outline of a garden was still distinguishable. But the most interesting and valuable result of these investigations was the finding of three graves with inscriptions, one of which will show the tenor of the whole:

"Sacred to the memory of William Braine, R.M., of H.M.S. Erebus, who died April 3, 1846, aged thirty-two years.Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.—Josh. xxiv. 15."

This and one of the other inscriptions, dated in January, seemed to fix at this spot the first winter quarters of Franklin,—for 1845-46. They also show that but three men died during the winter; and three out of one hundred and thirty-eight is not a high proportion of mortality. The seven hundred empty meat-tins seemed to show that the consumption of meat had been moderate; for the ships started with twenty-four thousand canisters. This was the substance of the intelligence obtained during this year of the fate of the wanderers; and it was, as will be noticed, already five years old.

An expedition was also fitted out for the search in 1850, under the combined auspices of Henry Grinnell, Esq., a merchant of New York, and the United States Navy Department,—the former furnishing the ships and the means, the latter the men and the discipline. Two hermaphrodite brigs,—the Advance and Rescue,—of one hundred and forty-four and ninety tonsrespectively, manned by thirty-eight men, all told, and strengthened for Arctic duty beyond all precedent, were prepared for the service. They were placed under the command of Lieutenant De Haven,—Dr. E. K. Kane, of the Navy, being appointed surgeon and naturalist to the squadron. They sailed from New York on the 23d of May, and in less than a month descried the gaunt coast of Greenland at the moment when the distinction between day and night began to be lost. The Danish inhabitants of the settlement at Lievely made them such presents of furs as their own scanty wardrobes permitted. Two sailors, complaining of sickness, were landed at Disco Island, thence to make the best of their way home.

DR. KANE.

DR. KANE.

DR. KANE.

DR. KANE PASSING THROUGH DEVIL'S NIP.

DR. KANE PASSING THROUGH DEVIL'S NIP.

DR. KANE PASSING THROUGH DEVIL'S NIP.

Thus far the weather had been favorable, and they passed the seventy-fourth degree without meeting ice. On the 7th of July, being still in Baffin's Bay, they encountered the pack. It was summer-ice, consisting of closely-set but separate floes. They could not make over three miles a day headway through it,—which they considered a useless expenditure of labor. They remained beset for twenty-one days, when the pack opened in various directions. The ships now reached Melville Bay, on the east side of Baffin's Bay,—Lancaster Sound, through which they were to pass, being upon the west. Melville Bay, from the fact that it is always crowded with icebergs, and presents in a bird's-eye view all the combined horrors and perils of Arctic navigation, has received the appellation of the "Devil's Nip." Across this formidable indentation the two vessels made their weary way, occupying five weeks in the transit. A steam-tug would have towed them across in forty-eight hours. In the middle of August the vessels entered Lancaster Sound, and, on the morning of the 21st, overhauled the Felix, engaged in the search, under the veteran Sir John Ross. The next day, the Prince Albert, one of Lady Franklin's ships, was seen, and, soon after, the intelligence was received of the discovery of traces of Franklin and his men. The navigators of both nations visited Beechey Island and saw there the evidences which we have already mentioned. The Advance and Rescue now strove in vain to urge their way to Wellington Channel. The sun travelled far to the south, and the brief summer was rapidly coming to a close. The cold increased, and the fires were not yet lighted below. On the 12th of September the Rescue was swept from her moorings by the ice and partially disabled. The pack in which they were enveloped, though not yet beset, was evidently drifting they knew not whither. The commander, convinced that all westward progress was vain for the season, resolved to return homeward. The vessels' heads were turned eastward, and slowly forced a passage through the reluctant ice. On the evening of the 14th of September, Dr. Kane was endeavoring, with the thermometerfar below zero, to commit a few words to his journal, when he heard De Haven's voice. "Doctor," he said, "the ice has caught us: we are frozen up."

The Advance was now destined to undergo treatment similar to that suffered by the Terror under Captain Back. For eight mortal months she was carried, cradled in the ice, backwards and forwards in Wellington Channel, wherever the winds and currents listed. At first, before the ice around them had become solid, they were exposed to constant peril from "nips" of floating and besieging floes; but these huge tablets soon became a protection by themselves receiving and warding off subsequent attacks. Early in October, the vessels were more firmly fixed than a jewel in its setting.

They now made preparations for passing the winter. The two crews were collected in the Advance. Until the stoves could be got up, a lard-lamp was burned in the cabin, by which the temperature was raised to 12° above zero. The condensed moisture upon the beams from so many breaths caused them to drip perpetually, till canvas gutters were fitted up, which carried off a gallon of water a day. The three stoves were soon ready, and these, together with the cooking-galley, diffused warmth through the common room formed by knocking the forecastle and cabin into one. Light was furnished by four argand and three bear's-fat lamps. The entire deck of the Advance was covered with a housing of thick felt. On the 9th of November their preparations were fairly completed.

The sun ceased to rise after the 15th of November: after that, the east was as dark at nine in the morning as at midnight; at eleven there was a faint twilight, and at noon a streak of brown far away to the south. The store-room would have furnished an amateur geologist with an admirable cabinet, so totally were the eatables and drinkables changed in appearance by the cold. "Dried apples and peaches assumed the appearance of chalcedony; sour-krout was mica, the laminæ of whichwere with difficulty separated by a chisel; butter and lard were passable marble; pork and beef were rare specimens of Florentine mosaic; while a barrel of lamp-oil, stripped of the staves, resembled a sandstone garden-roller."

The crews soon began to suffer in health and spirits: their faces became white, like celery kept from the light. They had strange dreams and heard strange sounds. The scurvy appeared, and old wounds bled afresh. Dr. Kane endeavored to combat the disease by acting upon the imagination of the sufferers. He ordered an old tar with a stiff knee to place the member in front of a strong magnet and let it vibrate to and fro like a pendulum. A wonderful and complete cure was thus effected. He practised all sorts of amiable deceptions upon his patients,—making them take medicine in salad and gargles in beer. Not a man was lost during the voyage.

From time to time fissures would open in the ice around them with an explosion like that of heavy artillery. It became necessary to make preparations for abandoning the vessel, and sledges, boats, and provisions were gotten ready for an emergency. The men were drilled to leave the ship in a mass at the word of command. The crisis seemed to be upon them many a time and oft; but the Advance held firmly together, and the ice around her gradually became solid as granite again. Dr. Kane lectured at intervals on scientific subjects, till the return of light brought with it a return of hope and animal spirits. On the 29th of January, 1851, the sun rose above the horizon, after an absence of eighty-six days. "Never," says Dr. Kane, "till the grave-clod or the ice covers me may I forego this blessing of blessings again! I looked at him thankfully, with a great globus in my throat."

The ice-pack did not open till the close of March. Previous to this, all the successive symptoms of the coming thaw presented themselves. The ice began to smoke, and the surface became first moist and then soft. It was soon too warm toskate, and the cabin-lamps, that had burned for four months without cessation, were extinguished. The mercury rose to 32°; the housings were removed from the Advance, and the Rescue's men returned to their deserted ship. The saw was put in motion early in May; but the grand disruption of the ice, which was either to free the ships or crush them, did not occur till the 5th of June. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when the first crack was heard, and the water, spirting up, was seen following the track of the fissure. In half an hour the ice was seamed with cracks in every direction, some of them spreading into rivers twenty feet across. The Rescue was released at once: the coating of the Advance held on for three days more, parting at last under the weight of a single man. The liberated ships soon made the Greenland coast, at Godhavn, where they spent five days in reposing, in celebrating the Fourth of July, and in splicing the main-brace,—this latter being a convivial, and not a mechanical, operation. The vessels arrived safely at the Brooklyn Navy-Yard on the 1st of October, 1851. The vessels were restored to Mr. Grinnell, with the stipulation that the Secretary of the Navy might claim them, in case of need, for further search in the spring.

THE SEAL.

THE SEAL.

THE SEAL.

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